Amend party-list law — Ilarde

Former senator Eddie Ilarde warned yesterday of an "ano-malous and unconstrained free-for-all" in the party-list elections next May if the existing law in this regard is not immediately amended and refined before the elections.

Ilarde, in a letter to President Estrada, urged the President to include in the agenda for the special session of Congress next month the amendment of some "infirm and impossible provisions" in the party-list law.

"These provisions need to be clarified and refined to avoid a repeat of the confusion and quandary they have created in their interpretation," said Ilarde, first nominee of the Maharlika party-list group.

"The two percent threshold in order to win one nominee is mathematically improbable in order to proclaim 52 winners, the 20 percent party-list membership in the House stipulated under the Constitution," Ilarde added.

One provision which needs clear-cut definition, Ilarde said, is the "matter of which organization is allowed to be accredited, under the sectoral provisions which the law, in the first place, wants recognized."
At present, he said hundreds of organizations, including government agencies and institutions which do not fall under the "marginalized sectors" of society, have filed their party-list applications.

"A labo-labo (confusion) is going to happen unless Congress, in its last days, clears this mess," Ilarde said.