Senate panel to define marginalized in party-list law

A Senate panel plans to define who are marginalized and underrepresented and who should be allowed to participate in the party-list system.

“There is no bill pending before my committee attempting to define the word marginalized and the word and underrepresented [so] we’ll come up with our own in order to improve the party-list law,” Senator Aqulino “Koko” Pimentel III, chair of the Senate electoral reforms committee, said during a hearing on Thursday.

“We will clarify the law to help the Comelec and all those participating in the party-list system,” Pimentel added.

Republic Act 7941 or the Party-List System Act provides that party-list representatives should belong to the marginalized and underrepresented groups or sectors.

But in the same hearing, Commission on Elections chairman Sixto Brillantes said the law does not provide a “clear definition” of marginalized and underrepresented.

“We don’t really have enough guidance under the party-list law,” Brillantes told the committee.

He said that their only guide is the 2001 Supreme Court decision on the Bagong Bayani vs. Comelec case.

The high tribunal’s decision gave the following points:

•The political party, sector, organization or coalition must represent the marginalized and underrepresented groups identified in Section 5 of RA 7941. Majority of its membership should belong to the marginalized and underrepresented.
•While major political parties are not disqualified merely on the ground that they are political parties, they must show, that they represent the interests of the marginalized and underrepresented.
•The Court notes the express constitutional provision that the religious sector may not be represented in the party-list system.
•The party or organization must not be an adjunct of, or a project organized or an entity funded or assisted by, the government.
•The party must not only comply with the requirements of the law; its nominees must likewise do so.

Asked how the Senate can go about any amendments, Brillantes suggested the Senate panel first define which sectors can be represented and who are marginalized in a sector.

Under section 5 of RA 7941, the sectors included are labor, peasant, fisherfolk, urban poor, indigenous cultural communities, elderly, handicapped, women, youth, veterans, overseas workers, and professionals.

Earlier, Brillantes said that they also plan to come out with their own definition of the two terms. — RSJ, GMA News