Time to revise the corrupted section of the party-list law

In 2022, Party-list Reps. France L. Castro, Arlene D. Brosas, and Raoul Danniel A. Manuel filed House Bill No. 211 that sought to restore what they thought was the “original purpose” of the party-list system by ensuring that registered party-lists truly represent marginalized groups through a public hearing by the Comelec.

The 1987 Constitution mandates that the marginalized and underrepresented community sectors like labor, peasants, the urban poor, and the youth be represented in the legislative branch of the government. Article VI, Section 5, Paragraph 2 provides that:

“The party-list representatives shall constitute 20% of the total number of representatives, including those under the party-list. For three consecutive terms after the ratification of this Constitution, one-half of the seats allocated to party-list representatives shall be filled, as provided by law, by selection or election from the labor, peasant, urban poor, indigenous cultural communities, women, youth, and such other sectors as may be provided by law, except the religious sector.”

This provision was an innovation introduced by the framers of the 1987 Constitution. It is not in the 1935 Constitution, which was modeled after the Constitution of the United States. Neither is it in the 1973 Constitution which is generally believed to have been written to suit the authoritarian intentions of President Ferdinand Marcos, Sr.  The provision was conceived by the framers of the Constitution with the noble purpose of giving the marginalized and underrepresented sectors of society representation in the House of Representatives.

The party-list concept is an adaptation of the party-list system of many European countries like the United Kingdom. For most of the 19th Century, British politics was dominated by two parties, the Whigs, composed mostly of aristocrats, wealthy merchants, and industrialists, and the Tories, who included the landed gentry and those associated with the Church of England and the Church of Scotland.

By the turn of the century, the Tories had evolved into the Conservative Party and the Whigs into the Liberal Party. Those two parties alternated in governing the British people, to the neglect of other sectors not represented in the Parliament. To gain representation in the Parliament, citizens of other sectors organized themselves into political parties and participated in the electoral process.

The framers of the 1987 Constitution wanted to ensure the marginalized and underrepresented sectors of the population were represented in government. They must have been oblivious of the fact that from the time the Philippines became a republic and established its own government in 1898, those sectors were already represented. Elected to the Malolos Congress of 1898 were three teachers, three military men, a priest, and four farmers. The Philippine Assembly of 1907 consisted of appointed delegates chosen by the president to represent regions under unstable military and civilian conditions.

They must have assumed that when they inserted the concept of party-list representation in the Constitution, the representatives, like the nominees of the British party-lists, would belong to the marginalized and underrepresented sectors. That is probably the reason why they did not think it necessary to include in Article VI, Section 5, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution the explicit expression that the party-list representatives must belong to the marginalized and underrepresented sectors.

The enabling law — Republic Act No. 7941 or the Party-List System Act — was drafted during the term of the 9th Congress, 1992-1995. Section 5 of RA 7941 says: “Any organized group of persons may register as a party, organization or coalition for purposes of the party-list system, provided that the sectors shall include labor, peasant, fisherfolk, urban poor, indigenous cultural communities, elderly, handicapped, women, youth, veterans, overseas workers, and professionals.”

There is no mention of the party-list system being exclusively for the marginalized and underrepresented sectors. There was no reason to say so as the 1987 Constitution did not say nor imply that. Of the 48 members of the Constitutional Commission that drafted the 1987 Constitution, only Blas Ople was a member of the 9th Congress. He was a senator. Obviously, he did not find the proposed law inconsistent with the Constitution as he posed no objection to the proposed law. President Fidel V. Ramos signed the bill into law on March 3, 1995.

Among the multi-millionaire party-list representatives in the House of Representatives are Pacman’s Mikee Romero, Agri’s Wilbert Lee, and Cibac’s Bro. Eddie Villanueva. There are those from political dynasties: Tingog’s Yedda Marie Romualdez of Leyte, Abono’s Robert Raymund Estrella of Pangasinan, Agimat’s Bryan Revilla of Cavite, Ako Ilocano Ako’s Richelle Singson of Ilocos Sur, and Alona’s Anna Marie Villaraza-Suarez of Quezon Province.

There have been multi-millionaire party-list representatives in the House before like Manila Teachers’ Virgilio Lacson, Agri’s Delphine Lee, and Angkla’s Jesulito Manalo. There were also the scions of political dynasties like Abono’s Conrado Estrella III of Pangasinan, LPGMA’s Rodolfo Albano III of Isabela, Abono’s Vini Nola Ortega of La Union, SBP’s Ricardo Belmonte of Quezon City, and PBA’s Jericho Nograles of Davao City.

Sons and daughters of leaders of influential groups have also represented party-lists in Congress. They were Buhay’s Mariano Michael Velarde, Jr., son of El Shaddai leader Mike Velarde, TUCP’s Raymond Democrito Mendoza, son of Democrito Mendoza, founder of the country’s largest labor union, and MATA’s Tricia Nicole Velasco-Catera, daughter of retired Supreme Court associate justice Presbitero Velasco. Then there are the well-connected like Buhay’s Lito Atienza, three-term mayor of Manila and President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

House Bill No. 211 filed by Representatives Castro, Brosas, and Manuel was “killed” at the committee level. Multi-millionaire party-list representatives and party-list representatives belonging to political dynasties cannot be expected to change the very system that enabled them to be in Congress.

Maybe President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. can influence the Supreme Court to declare Section 5 of RA 7941 unconstitutional or to reverse its previous rulings on the section. That supposition is not entirely unthinkable.

In 2009, the Court struck down as unconstitutional the clause “those garnering more than 2% of the votes shall be entitled to additional seats in proportion to their total number of votes” in Section11 (b) of RA 7941 because this clause “makes it mathematically impossible to achieve the maximum number of available party-list seats when the number of available party-list seats exceeds 50.”

In 2011, in response to a mere letter from Philippine Air Lines counsel Estelito Mendoza, the Court en banc reversed its rulings in 2008, 2009, and 2011 that the retrenchment of Philippine Air Lines employees in 1998 was illegal and ordered their reinstatement.

In 2013 the Court ruled that party-lists need not represent any “marginalized” sector. That ruling was to affirm a previous decision favorable to then President Gloria Arroyo. In 2010 her son Mikey filed his certificate of candidacy as the representative of the party-list of tricycle drivers and security guards. A disqualification complaint was filed with the Court against Mikey Arroyo on the basis that he had no connection with them, in violation of RA 7941.

The Court dismissed the complaint, saying party-list representatives need only to advocate common ideologies or governance principles regardless of their economic status. That is the ruling that enabled multi-millionaires, members of political dynasties, and those well-connected to the powers that be to use the party-list system as their way of getting elected to the House of Representatives.

In July 2016, former president Gloria Arroyo was set free by the Court sans legal blather. It will be recalled that prior to the 2016 general elections, presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte said he would support the call for Arroyo’s release from hospital arrest. Just two weeks after Mr. Duterte was sworn in as president, Arroyo walked free.

And when Mr. Duterte was president, all he had to do was say he wanted former president Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, martial law imposed in the whole of Mindanao, and Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno ousted from the Supreme Court, and the Court willingly obliged.

The Supreme Court, regardless of who the members are, has shown compliance to the sitting president, regardless of who he or she was. We can expect the present Supreme Court to also abide by the wishes of President Bongbong Marcos. But he may not want Section 5 of RA 7941 revised because his allies among the party-list representatives might lose their seats in Congress.

Maybe the surviving members of the Constitutional Commission that drafted the 1987 Constitution, notably Adolf Azcuna, retired associate justice of the Supreme Court, and Bernardo Villegas, staunch advocate of economic development of the periphery, can convince the Supreme Court to revise Paragraph 2, Section 5, of Article VI to reflect their original intent that party-lists can represent only the marginalized sector of Philippine society — if indeed that was the original intent.

Oscar P. Lagman, Jr. is a retired corporate executive, business consultant, and management professor. He is an avid reader of Philippine history.