EDITORIAL - There is something we can do about the partylist problem

It is increasingly making sense to skip voting for partylist organizations in the coming elections. Except for a few, most people do not know anything about these groups, what they represent, and who they are nominating to represent them in case they make the cut.

It has already been proven that the partylist system should not have been born, that it is a duplication of the functions of regular members of Congress who represent everybody, even the so-called marginalized sectors.

The partylist system was introduced to perpetuate the charade about those who have less in life needing to have more in law. More importantly, it was introduced to highlight the myth about democracy reborn.

Well, all we need do is look around and it does not take expert analysis to realize the partylist system has been a huge failure. If there is one success the system may have achieved, it is in having opened the floodgates to abuse.

People who are not familiar with how topsy-turvy life in the Philippines can get will be amazed to see how many “marginalized” groups there are in the country. To recognize more than a hundred groups as marginalized is to suggest the Philippines is a land with no mainstream.

If there are not enough “marginalized groups” to declare, Filipinos will invent more. It has come to a point where people invent a catchy acronym first then weave a meaning into it in such a way that it will denote some invented marginalized sector.

Our fear is that pretty soon, regular congressmen will find it so much easier to get into Congress through the backdoor that they may start inventing marginalized groups of their own. Maybe they will even declare duly-elected representatives as marginalized.

But since it is not easy to do away with a system that has been written into a tailore-made but infirm constitution, the easiest and fastest way to deal with the problem is to skip the partylist section of the ballot altogether.

You will not miss anything if you skip it since regular congressmen will be taking care of everything. If one only takes a long hard look, the greatest beneficiaries of regular congressman are still the marginalized sectors. It is time we scuttle the partylist system.