EDITORIAL - Party-list abuse

After President Duterte slammed what he described as the abuse of the party-list system by several progressive groups that he tagged as communist front organizations, several of his party-list allies have expressed openness to amending the law that institutionalized the system. Party-list representatives of the tagged groups themselves have said they also wanted the law amended to make the system truly representative of marginalized sectors.

When the dust has settled in the May elections and the winners have been proclaimed, let’s hope the next Congress will proceed with the necessary amendments. Otherwise, seeing the brazen abuse of the system, support for the abolition of the party-list could intensify.

Framers of the Constitution have said the party-list provision was meant to give marginalized sectors a voice in legislation, although this objective was not specifically written into the Charter. Republic Act 7941 or the Party-List System Act of 1995 did say that the 20 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives that must be allotted to party-list members should cover the sectors of “labor, peasant, fisherfolk, urban poor, indigenous cultural communities, elderly, handicapped, women, youth, veterans, overseas workers and professionals.”

The law allows both political and sectoral parties, or a coalition of parties to participate, as long as the political party or coalition is not among the major ones. Religious sects and related groups are barred from participating.

Party-list nominees must be bonafide members of the party within 90 days prior to election day. This has not been interpreted to mean that the nominee must belong to the sector sought to be represented.

So we now have the farce of having party-list congressmen who clearly are not part of the marginalized sector or profession that they seek to represent. And we have party-list congressmen who claim that their group represents all sectors.

Each party-list representative enjoys exactly the same remuneration and perks of congressional district representatives. Thanks to a Supreme Court ruling, the Comelec has had minimal success in weeding out groups that abuse the system. This experiment in marginal representation has been shamelessly abused, at the expense of taxpayers. Clearly, RA 7941 is ripe for revision, if not outright repeal.