Thoughts on the Party-List (Part I)

The ballot for the May 2010 elections will be the longest in Philippine history. Aside from the candidates for President and Vice President all the way down to city or municipal councilors, we will also be choosing from 144 party list contenders that have been accredited by the Comelec.

The party list system is one of the innovations introduced by the 1987 Constitution. The pertinent parts of Article VI, Section 5 provide that “The House of Representatives shall be composed of not more than 250 members, unless otherwise fixed by law, who shall be elected from legislative districts . . . . and those who, as provided by law, shall be elected through a party list system of registered national, regional and sectoral parties or organizations. The party list representatives shall constitute 20% of the total number of Representatives including those under the party list. For three consecutive terms after the ratification of the Constitution, one-half of the seats allocated to party list representatives shall be filled, as provided by law, by selection or election from the labor, peasant, urban poor, indigenous cultural communities, women, youth and such other sectors as may be provided by law, except the religious sector.”

At the outset, it would be helpful to distinguish two distinct but related concepts: sectoral representation and the party-list system. The former is, in the words of Commissioner Wilfrido Villacorta, who was the main proponent of sectoral representation, “a gesture of extending protection to the interests of marginalized groups which are not adequately attended to in normal legislative deliberations.” Villacorta also believed that sectoral representation “will engender the rise of nontraditional political parties and greater participation of people’s organizations.” And since “sectoral representation merges the features and dynamics of both direct and representative democracy, the people will have direct and firsthand experience in the electoral process as there will be more genuine grassroot consultations.”

On the other hand, the main sponsor of the party list system, former Commissioner and Comelec Chair Christian Monsod, raised the potential problems attendant to the creation of sectoral representation: First, who will determine the sectors that need to be represented? And if a law comes up with a list of such sectors, will it not be excluding those that are not in the enumeration? Second, who would be entitled to represent a sector? Will the representative have to be a “pure” member of such group or can he be a “mongrel”? For example, to represent the farmers group, can a farmer who is also a lawyer represent such sector? Also do we leave it to the discretion of the person to say “I am a farmer” so he would be included in that sector? Finally, if we go into a reserved system for sectoral representation, are we not, in effect, giving some people two votes and other people just one?

On the other hand, Monsod described the party list as a “system opener” since it enables any group or party which has a formidable nationwide constituency to obtain a seat in Congress. This, he said, was fair given that legislative districts with a population of at least 250,000 are able to elect their representative. Such a system also promotes a “united we stand, divided we fall” ethos as it encourages groups that share a common interest to band together for otherwise they may not meet the minimum threshold needed for a Congressional seat.

And as distinguished from a sectoral representative set up where only the voters who belong to a particular sector get to vote twice, in a party list system, every voter has two votes: One vote for the representative of her legislative district and a second vote for a party that has been previously accredited by the Comelec.

So which sectors are entitled to run under the party list system? Can a political party register under the party list? What is the threshold number of votes needed to elect a representative? Are there a maximum number of representatives that a party list can elect? Is the allocated 20% of the total House membership set a mandatory number that must be filled or does it merely set a ceiling? What are the qualifications of a party list nominee? Does a person need to be an actual member of a sector to represent such sector? These are but some of the questions that the enabling law, Republic Act 7941, and its implementing rules sought to answer. Unfortunately, the law spawned a new set of questions which the Supreme Court seemingly resolved but only to change its mind on some of the issues later on. More to come on the party list in my next column. –Dean Andy Bautista (The Philippine Star)

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