Senator Vicente “Tito” Sotto III has filed a bill seeking to amend the Party-List System Act in an effort to ensure the proper representation of the country’s marginalized sectors, bringing the system back in line with its original purpose under the 1987 Constitution.
“Through the years, the interpretation of the law on ‘party-list’ has expanded its qualification and has deviated from the intent of the framers of the 1987 Constitution, which is to truly represent the marginalized and the underrepresented,” said Sotto, who currently sits as the Senate minority leader. “The party-list system has also been abused and used as a vehicle to pursue advocacies that are not for the best interest of the government.”
Sotto’s measure further outlined grounds for canceling the registration of party-list groups, such as instances where members or nominees do not belong to these sectors, direct or indirect participation in acts detrimental to the best interest of the government, ceasing to be a marginalized sector, and material misrepresentation of nominees.
“Amid the many issues hounding government officials, it is high time to revisit the true purpose of the party-list system, whether these groups are genuinely representing the marginalized, or merely hiding behind the guise of doing so for personal or political gain,” Sotto said in the bill’s explanatory note.
As of the end of July, the month the bill was filed, the bill is still pending a second reading, having been referred to the Senate Committee on Electoral Reforms and People’s Participation. But on Monday, September 1, Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Erwin Garcia spoke in support of the bill, calling it “timely and long-awaited.”
Duterte Youth Party-List Conflict
On Friday, August 29, the Comelec upheld its ruling canceling the registration of the Duterte Youth Party-List. In June, the commission voted to cancel the party-list’s registration for violating election rules, to which the party-list filed a motion for reconsideration that same month.
Specifically, the Comelec found that Duterte Youth failed to meet jurisdictional requirements for registration, such as publishing its petition and the commission’s hearing notice in two national newspapers.
The Comelec also canceled Duterte Youth’s registration due to material misrepresentation.
In 2019, three of the party-list’s five nominees in the race for Congress were aged 31 to 36. After it won a seat in the elections, all nominees withdrew, prompting Duterte Youth Chairman Ronald Cardema, aged 34 at the time, to attempt to step in as the first nominee and representative-elect. Disputes between the party-list and the Comelec ensued, as Cardema and the other nominees exceeded the 25 to 30 age requirement for youth sector representatives.
In October 2020, however, the Comelec granted Duterte Youth nominee and Cardema’s wife Ducielle Marie Suárez a certificate of proclamation, giving the party-list a seat in the House of Representatives.
Lastly, the Comelec said the party-list promoted violence, finding that its social media posts against activists and other political groups sought to “legitimize violence as a means of governance and dissent suppression.”
Philstar reports that some examples cited were “Uubusin kayo ng Duterte Youth” and “Uubusin naming kayo sa lansangan kasama ang mga [National People’s Army] comrades niyo.” The posts also violated the Comelec’s anti-discrimination rules, which prohibit labeling and red-tagging.
