Purge of party-list groups turning out to be yellow

We have been supportive of the initiatives taken by Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. to review and cleanse the ranks of party-list organizations that have been used by unscrupulous groups as their back-door entry to Congress. Only those party-list groups that passed the Comelec review would be allowed to participate in our next automated elections in May 2013.

Under Republic Act (RA) 7941, or the Party-List System Act of 1995, this law sought to enable “Filipino citizens belonging to the marginalized and under-represented sectors, organizations and parties and who lack well-defined political constituents but who could contribute to the formulation and enactment of appropriate legislation that will benefit the nation as well to become members of the House of Representatives.”

Last April 27, 52 party-list groups were de-listed from the Comelec records. The Brillantes-led Comelec invoked their motu propio power to do so after these party-list groups lost in  two successive elections in 2007 and in 2010. Many of the disqualified party-list organizations are really just a “nuisance” to say the least, if not really just fronts or dummies for certain politicians who can’t win in regular elections.

But in their next round of review, the Comelec went beyond new applications for party-list organizations. The poll body even disqualified 29 existing accredited party-list organizations. What stirred the hornets’ nest, so to speak, was when the Comelec disqualified the Ako Bikol (AKB) party-list group which garnered the highest number of votes in the last May 2010 elections. In fact, they have three incumbent representative seats proportionate to their having garnered 1.5 million votes. Reps. Rodel Batocabe, Christopher Co and Alfredo Garbin are the AKB nominees sitting in the 15th Congress.

As per its name, Ako Bikol is supposed to represent Bicolanos as under-represented or marginalized sector in our country. However, the Comelec disqualified AKB, citing the group’s accreditation is for a regional political party and not for party-list. 

In the case of 1st Consumer’s Alliance for Rural Energy Inc. (1-Care), the Comelec ruled they failed to file their manifestation to participate in the coming election next year. This  despite the fact that 1-CARE has two incumbent representatives, namely, Michael Angelo Rivera and Salvador Cabaluna III at the House. He insisted the poll body is not obligated to follow a 2010 ruling of the SC in favor of 1-CARE.

Ang Galing Pinoy, which is supposed to be representing the interest of lowly paid security guards, has only one seat. Their designated representative is Mikey Arroyo, eldest son of former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Ang Galing Pinoy is one of the 29 accredited party-list groups disqualified by the Comelec to run again in next year’s elections, for obvious reasons.

But when the Comelec disqualified an existing party-list group that topped the 2010 elections that more than one and a half million Filipinos voted for, certainly this raises a lot of questions, if not suspicions, on how a shift in political fortunes could undo the people’s will just like that.

More so when the poll body did it in obvious distorted interpretation of RA 7941 as well as jurisprudence of cases ruled by the Supreme Court (SC) in determining the standards for qualifying and disqualifying party-list groups.

The issue at hand is not whether there is a need to cleanse next year’s party-list elections of bogus and unqualified groups, because everyone would agree that there certainly is. There is no debate, either, on whether the poll body must ensure proper sectoral representation as embodied in the 1987 Constitution.

The crux of the matter is that Comelec has committed an injustice, if not going beyond its authority, that may disenfranchise millions of voters in the 2013 elections. Lawyers of AKB rightfully accused Comelec of having flip-flopped because the Bicol-based regional party has twice been found by the poll body to represent marginalized and under-represented constituents.

In 2009, Comelec’s First Division granted AKB accreditation for being a regional political party. But in a decision released on Oct. 10, Comelec decided to change the rules mid-game and, after less than 24 hours of hearing AKB representatives, the poll body decided that the party did not represent any marginalized sector.

What is even more suspicious is that Comelec did not apply the same standards it used against AKB to other similarly situated party-list organizations now in Congress. Other party-list groups have two seats or one only, like Citizens Battle Against Corruption (CIBAC), Bayan Muna, Akbayan, Gabriela, An Waray, Anak-pawis, Alliance of Concerned Teachers, to name some. But the Comelec review did not touch them.

An election lawyer himself for decades, the 72-year-old Brillantes should know the Comelec rulings on these incumbent party-list groups stand on shaky ground  that he needed a “tie-breaker” from newly appointed Comelec commissioner Grace Padaca. Brillantes is very well aware that when there is tie vote in en banc decisions of the poll body, the Comelec ruling goes in favor of retention of the party-list group’s accreditation.

While he stands pat on the Comelec rulings now under attack, Brillantes suggested to the affected party-list groups to just seek relief from the  SC. The AKB and the 1-CARE party-list groups precisely did that one after the other when they elevated their cases to the SC last week.

The poll body will again deliberate on the fate of the rest of party-list groups today. But the Comelec will have two less of the seven-man poll body because commissioners Armando Velasco and Padaca flew to Washington DC to observe the US presidential polls and will be there until Nov. 8.

If the Comelec wants to expand the grounds for disqualification of party-list groups, it should ask Congress to amend the existing law. But until then, Comelec should not allow its on-going review of party-list groups as a guise to purge those linked with the previous administration. It smacks of yellow-colored partisan motives.