EDITORIAL — Issues regarding partylists

During last Monday’s Senate electoral reforms committee hearing, Commission on Elections chairman George Garcia urged lawmakers to pass legislation governing the substitution of party-list nominees, saying that groups exploit the current rules.

Garcia said that some groups secure accreditation by submitting a list of legitimate sectoral representatives, only to have all winning nominees simultaneously resign after the election. He asked Congress to legislate laws against substitutions.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III added that some groups with existing political representation have been allowed to run as partylists.

“’Yong mga provincial groups, marginalized ba ‘yon? Ang dami nilang congressmen. Mga regions, ang dami ng congressmen. Paano sila naging marginalized?” he said.

Yes, these are two issues that should be addressed.

Substitution has been abused to hell and back. We all know how it works: Someone runs for a partylist who actually looks to be part of that marginalized sector, but then after that partylist wins someone else takes over who isn’t even part of that sector at all.

Then there’s partylists that don’t really deserve a seat. Like region- or province-based partylists. There are already congressmen representing those places; there’s no more need to give them additional seats.

Then there are also partylists that are actually political groups in disguise. Like that “youth group” that actually supports just one political family. With a membership numbering in the millions around the country, an organized structure, and a common agenda, they can’t exactly claim to be marginalized, can they?

Then there are partylists based on jobs or occupations that, while indispensable to many sectors of society, just don’t really deserve a voice in legislation. We are talking about athletes, actors, liquefied petroleum gas sellers, etc.

We aren’t saying that what they do isn’t important, no. Rather that they aren’t on the fringes of society and powerless --the very meaning of being marginalized-- and that their issues can be solved at their own level without them needing legislative representation.

The partylist system was supposed to give voice to the real marginalized sectors like the urban poor, farmers, fisherfolks, and others. But throughout the years it has been used by groups claiming to be disadvantaged and without a voice, when in reality they already have so much in the way of power and influence.