Probing the Party-List System in the Philippines
Philippine Party-List System: A Failure or a Success?
The country’s population is about 90 million; about 70 percent of which is in poverty. It is not farfetched to say that majority of the country’s population is underserved and marginalized ― our farmers, fisher folks, the youth and the women among others ―and are in need of government’s attention. In a developing country like the Philippines, decision-making or policy-making must gear towards development of these underserved sectors of the Philippine society.
The population elects its legislators ― congressional and party-list representatives, senators and the rest of the elective members of the bureaucracy. But what assurance do the Filipino people get that the underserved are represented in the policy-making body of the country? It is the party-list system.
As defined by Republic Act No. 7941 also known as the Philippine Party-list Act, “the party-list system is a mechanism of proportional representation in the election of representatives to the House of Representatives from national, regional and sectoral parties or organizations or coalitions thereof registered with the Commission on Elections (COMELEC).”
The rationale behind the emergence of the Philippine party-list system in the Philippine party politics is to provide representation to the marginalized and underrepresented sectors of the society ― a ‘democratizing agent’ to the elite-oriented Congress. Nonetheless, it attempts to challenge the status quo and truly serve the underserved masses (Rivera, 2007).
The emergence of the party-list system is not an event which transpired “out of the blue” rather an attempt to redress an insufficiently undemocratic growing elite party politics in the country.
Tracing history backwards, the domination of the elite-oriented party politics can clearly be seen since its beginning up to its continuing ascendancy in the Philippine politics today.
When the American rule in the Philippines instigated, they were
The country’s population is about 90 million; about 70 percent of which is in poverty. It is not farfetched to say that majority of the country’s population is underserved and marginalized ― our farmers, fisher folks, the youth and the women among others ―and are in need of government’s attention. In a developing country like the Philippines, decision-making or policy-making must gear towards development of these underserved sectors of the Philippine society.
The population elects its legislators ― congressional and party-list representatives, senators and the rest of the elective members of the bureaucracy. But what assurance do the Filipino people get that the underserved are represented in the policy-making body of the country? It is the party-list system.
As defined by Republic Act No. 7941 also known as the Philippine Party-list Act, “the party-list system is a mechanism of proportional representation in the election of representatives to the House of Representatives from national, regional and sectoral parties or organizations or coalitions thereof registered with the Commission on Elections (COMELEC).”
The rationale behind the emergence of the Philippine party-list system in the Philippine party politics is to provide representation to the marginalized and underrepresented sectors of the society ― a ‘democratizing agent’ to the elite-oriented Congress. Nonetheless, it attempts to challenge the status quo and truly serve the underserved masses (Rivera, 2007).
The emergence of the party-list system is not an event which transpired “out of the blue” rather an attempt to redress an insufficiently undemocratic growing elite party politics in the country.
Tracing history backwards, the domination of the elite-oriented party politics can clearly be seen since its beginning up to its continuing ascendancy in the Philippine politics today.
When the American rule in the Philippines instigated, they were