MANILA — Curing supposed defects in the party-list system that has been invaded by political families and special interests can only be done through constitutional reform, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III said.

The party-list system was created by the 1987 Constitution and reserves 20 percent of the seats at the House of Representatives for representatives of "labor, peasant, urban poor, indigenous cultural communities, women, youth, and such other sectors as may be provided by law, except the religious sector."

Supreme Court decisions since the implementation of the system in 1998 have opened up the party-list race to regional political parties and to the sectoral arms of national parties.

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"We really need to have a constitutional reform. After election na nga para new set of legislators na, tapos gawin na nating campaign issue na rin 'yan, tanungin natin lahat ng mga tumatakbo ano posisyon po nila," Pimentel said at a press conference on Monday.

(Let us also make this a campaign issue and ask the candidates what their position is)

Citing media interviews with some party-list nominees, Pimentel said that some political clans have taken advantage of the party-list elections.

"Ang sagot nila eh dinadagdagan lang daw nila yung puwersa ng district representative na kamag-anak nila, so nasira na po yung essence of the party-list system na sana the poor and the marginalized," he said.

(What they said was they were adding to the power of their relatives who are district reprsentatives, so that destroys the essence of the party-list system, which was supposed to be for the poor and the marginalized)

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REGIONAL PARTIES, LOOPHOLES

Pimentel, a lawyer, said that allowing regional parties to join the party-list system have given local politicians more justification for fielding relatives as party-list nominees.

"Kasi 'we will represent the region', so dapat siguro ang reform sa party-list talaga, it should be national constituencies," he said.

(They will say 'we will represent the region', so maybe the reform in the party-list system should be limiting it to national constituencies)

He said that further reforms to bring back the essence of party-list representation would be to list down and define the marginalized sectors, and to require nominees to be part of the sectors they represent. 

"Doon tayo nabutasan eh (That was a loophole)," he also said.

Election watchdog Kontra Daya has long called for reforms to the party-list system, saying in 2022 that of 177 party-list groups seeking seats, "at least 44 party-list groups [are] controlled by political clans and at least 21 have connections with big business" based on nominees' backgrounds, track records and declared advocacies.

'VOTE FOR PROGRESSIVES'

In a statement on Monday, human rights lawyer and Akbayan Party-list nominee Jose Manuel "Chel" Diokno urged voters to pick progressive party-lists, with Akbayan asserting that every seat won by progressives is one less seat for dynasties.

"Imbes na interes ng sariling pamilya ang isusulong ng mga nakaupo sa Kongreso, ang kailangan ng bayan ngayon ang mga mambabatas na lalaban para sa kapakanan ng ordinaryong Pilipino," Diokno said.

(The country needs lawmakers who will fight for the welfare of ordinary Filipinos and not the interests of their political families)

Pimentel, who was Senate president when the Duterte administration campaigned for charter change for a shift to federalism, is running in 2025 to represent Marikina City's 1st District. — with RG Cruz, ABS-CBN News

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