In the government of Álvaro Uribe Vélez he was advisor to the then Minister of Communications María del Rosario Guerra.
[3] Mayor-designate of Altamira-Huila in 1980, he served on the council of the municipality of Garzón, and continued his political career as deputy and secretary general of the Assembly of the Department of Huila between 1987 and 1988.
For the 2014 legislative elections, Macías Tovar was part of the closed list[7] for the Senate of the Republic of Colombia of the Centro Democrático political movement, headed by former President Álvaro Uribe.
This party and Senator Macías have made a strong opposition to the peace talks that took place in Havana, Cuba, between the Colombian State and the FARC- EP.
Before the Commission of Accusation and Investigations of the House of Representatives, Ernesto Macias denounced[8] the disbursement of more than $3 billion pesos by President Juan Manuel Santos under the figure of indicative quotas, which according to Macias, are nothing more than the misnamed parliamentary aids that the Constitutional court abolished from the 1991 Political Constitution.