Scrap the party-list system

The intention of Republic Act 7941 or the Party-list System Act is noble and without question. After all, who can argue against empowering and giving a voice to the marginalized and under-represented sectors of society.

But the makers of that law were too focused on the empowerment part and did not consider the environment upon which empowerment is to take place. That environment is the Philippines, a country so unlike the others where a party-list system is very well-suited.

A party-list system works very well in mature democracies, such as those that can be found in Europe. Moreover, the system works fine in developed economies where marginalized and under-represented sectors are few and manageable.

Not so in the Philippines, which is not only driven by immature politics, but whose resources are being sapped and overwhelmed by too many marginalized and underrepresented sectors than can be adequately served under a partylist system.

The nature of political representation in the Philippines, at least as far as the House of Representatives is concerned, is determined by the existing number of congressional seats, of which there are presently 286.

Of the 286 congressional seats in the House of Representatives, 229 are from geographical or legislative districts. The remaining 57 are made up of party-list representatives whose number is determined by the 20 percent share of all seats as mandated by RA 7941.

Normally, there ought to be a redistricting made by Congress after every census done in 10-year cycles, but this has not been done since the late 1980s, Congress having shifted the mode of redistricting to simple legislation.

Anyway, even with 57 existing party-list seats in the present Congress, the number is widely believed to be still way short of what it should be if each and every marginalized and under-represented sector is to be represented at all.

In other words, not even the best intentions of RA 7941 could have practically covered every sector that ought to be represented under the law. The Philippines is simply too poor a country that there are as many target sectors of RA 7941 as there are leaves in a tree.

In such an environment, RA 7941 was doomed to fail, not only under the weight of too much expectations that just cannot be practically met, but also because of the attendant evils of immature politics that ensure anything good can be exploited for the gain of the bad.

And that is why, under the present party-list setup, too many truly marginalized and under-represented sectors have been shoved aside in favor of sectors that are not marginalized or under-represented at all. The concessions granted under the law that would have made it easier to afford the target sectors a seat in Congress ( only 2 percent of total votes cast would earn a seat for a partylist group) have instead opened the floodgates for bogus, or at least unwarranted, representations.

The sad thing is that it is the environment obtaining in this country that has created loopholes that beg to be exploited and abused by the unscrupulous. There are just too many target sectors that it becomes hard to tell which is which.

The Comelec, perhaps in preparation for next year’s election, says it will be weeding out the fake, undeserving or exploitative groups. That is not the solution. Besides, the Comelec is not exactly that trustworthy in initiating political purges.

To forestall the prospect of Comelec getting used to further certain political interests, such as by the administration in power, the better thing to do is for the country to simply scrap the party-list system altogether.

There are simply too many marginalized and underrepresented sectors to be legitimately represented in the Philippines. If the system can only serve a few and in so doing open itself to exploitation and abuse, better to put the experiment to pasture.