Dynasties tighten grip on Philippines Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo won more than 88 per cent of the vote for congress in Pampanga province. Photo: Getty Images/Bradley Kanaris The Ampatuan clan was never going to be thrown out of power, despite being accused of killing 58 people, including 32 members of the media in one of the worst massacres in modern Philippine history. The latest count in the country's mid-term elections has family members, including three wives of senior clan figures, who are facing murder charges, winning 19 local government positions. The women were elected town mayors while 16 other family members were elected vice-mayors and councillors in Maguindanao, a Muslim-dominated southern province, deepening fears that justice may never be served in the 2009 killings that prosecutors say were a bid to quash a rival's challenge to become governor. Imelda Marcos, right, and her daughter Imee Marcos, left, are declared winners in elections last week. Bobby Tuazon, director for policy studies at the Philippine Centre for People Empowerment in Governance, said the elections last week had entrenched the dominance of political dynasties across the country in a brazen display of oligarchic power. "With political dynasties even more entrenched in the House of Representatives and Senate, hopes are now dim on the filing of an anti-dynasty enabling law," Professor Tuazon said, referring to a Supreme Court petition last year aimed at ending dynastic rule in the country. Professor Tuazon said while the Philippines has been ruled by political families since the turn of the 20th century their new strategy was to field more family members for more elective positions in what they saw as a win-win situation. Joseph Estrada is proclaimed Mayor-elect of Manilla. Photo: AP/Bullit Marquez The Ampatuan family, which denies involvement in the massacre, fielded 80 candidates last week. "The political system is dominated by oligarchs and democracy is at best accurately described as 'elite democracy' - a democracy in form and procedure without substance," Professor Tuazon said. Records show that 160 families have continuously served in both houses of the Philippine parliament since 1907. The family of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos perpetuated its dominance in his home province of Ilocos Norte at the election, with his 83 year-old wife Imelda winning 88 per cent of the vote for a seat in her nation's lower house. Marcos' eldest daughter Imee was elected unopposed as governor of the province while his son Ferdinand junior is a serving congressman gearing up for a presidential bid in 2016. Joseph Estrada, the former president forced from office over corruption allegations in 2001, won as mayor of Manila while his son Joseph Victor won a Senate seat and Mr Victor's mother won re-election as mayor of San Juan in Manila. Mr Estrada's nephew Emilio Ramon Ejercito won re-election as governor of Laguna, a neighbouring province of Manila and another son, Jose, is an incumbent senator. Vice-president Jejomar Binay was not running in the elections but his family was a big winner: daughters Nancy and Abigail won parliamentary seats while his son and namesake Jejomar junior was re-elected mayor of Makati. The Singsons, the oldest political clan whose members have held power since 1823, won nine elective posts. One of the winners was Ronald Singson, who three years ago was sentenced to 14 months in jail in Hong Kong for cocaine possession. He regained the lower house seat he had vacated after the conviction. Another former president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, won more than 88 per cent of the vote to get a second term as a congresswoman in her home province of Pampanga, despite facing multiple corruption charges. A report by the Centre for People Empowerment, a local public policy centre founded in 2004, said the dynastic rule was generated by public perceptions that dynasties were above the law, giving their candidates a 30 per cent greater chance of winning than non-traditional rivals. Jose Rodriguez was unopposed as mayor of San Marcelino, north-west of Manila, although he is on trial for the alleged rape of a 12 year-old girl in 2010. He denies the charge. Cipriano Violago has gone underground after winning a hard fought mayoralty race in San Rafael, a town 40 kilometres north of the capital. He is wanted on a charge of killing a policeman, a claim he denies. The election success of the Ampatuan family follows the assassinations of three witnesses and three potential witnesses in the trials of 93 people accused of involvement in the massacre, some of them the alleged gunmen. Noemi Parcon, whose journalist husband was among those who died, said the election results "could really crush the people's hopes that those responsible for the massacre will be punished."