Macalintal bats for overhaul of party-list system

Election lawyer Romulo Macalintal is pushing for the overhaul of the apparently flawed party-list system, saying it needs to be more attuned to the spirit by which it had been enshrined in the Constitution.

In a speech before a conference of the Publishers Association of the Philippines Inc. at the Makati City Sports Club last Thursday, Macalintal stressed that despite the best intentions of the framers of the Constitution, the present manner by which the party list system is run leaves much to be desired.

“(The party-list system in our country (was conceived in the) best intention to guarantee that only those ‘truly belonging to marginalized and underrepresented sectors…’ become members of Congress. (But) judging from the results of the recent elections, these sectors…have been practically set aside or (are) no longer represented (but) what we have now are party lists (of) members of…political clans…(seeking) to become members of Congress through the backdoor…,” he said.

Macalintal said the present problem on the party list system has come about from “the weakness of (the) law…and the laxity of the Comelec (Commission on Elections) in approving the registration of (party list applicants).”

“This contributed to the continuing prostitution of this political system (by) the very institutions mandated to implement the system (which) have not shown any sincere effort and concern to protect the rights and interests of the sectors who deserve to benefit from this system,” he added.

One solution to this problem, he said, was to register and arrange party list groups on the ballot by sector and not alphabetically.

“In this way, all the sectors provided for in the Constitution and the law are assured of representation. The sectors themselves can monitor any group claiming to belong to a particular sector as they can object or oppose the registration of such group before the Comelec,” Macalintal pointed out.

Due to loopholes in the Party-List System Law several groups and individuals have found a way to circumvent it to enable them to qualify to run in the party-list elections or as a group’s representative in Congress.

One recent prominent case was that of presidential son and former Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo, who was nominated as a representative of the Ang Galing Pinoy (AGP), a party-list group that advocates the welfare and rights of security guards.

Several sectors questioned his qualification to be the group’s nominee since he has had no background experience of having supervised or even having been employed as a security guard himself.

While the AGP has been proclaimed in having won in the last elections, the disqualification case filed against Mikey Arroyo as the group’s nominee representative is still pending resolution before the Comelec. Ted Boehnert, Daily Tribune