The 1987 Constitution that was created and was eventually
implemented during the presidency of former Corazon Aquino.
One of the innovation that was introduced by the Aquino Constitution
was the calling for 20 percent of the House of Representatives seats to be
reserved for so-called “party-list representatives” who supposedly represent
the country’s marginalized sectors in society.
It has a noble purpose, to create a voice for those sectors
that are not represented but it is directly affected in any laws that is
created or crafted in Congress.
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| Philippine Congress (photo credit to owner) |
But through the years it has been criticized to be one of
the useless and abused Constitutional privilege since it has been the breeding
ground or entry point of those from the left (communists) who instead of
advancing basic people betterment laws has made of use this platform to further
their ideology and continues to attack destabilize the very government they are
expected to help.
“ACTS OFW” representative Aniceto Bertiz 3rd
show of arrogance recently in the airport has further noise for the call for the abolition of the
party list system in the country.
Manila Times veteran columnist and former diplomat Rigoberto
Tiglao in his October 3, 2018 published
article titled “Party-list system has spawned hundreds of Bertizes and worse
characters” he explains the origin and the harsh realities that th Partylist
system has been to he country.
For the sake of clarity and full story we have quoted in
full the whole article written by former diplomat Rigoberto Tiglao for the
convenience and further knowledge of our reading public.
THE arrogance demonstrated at the
airport by “ACTS OFW” representative Aniceto Bertiz 3rd that triggered
netizens’ outrage should remind us how absurd our so-called party list system
is.
Purportedly set up to represent the
country’s marginalized sectors, it has merely become the means for
millionaires, religious cults, and most importantly, Communist Party cadres to
enter Congress.
While supposedly representing OFWs,
Bertiz is not an OFW, and is in fact the 11th richest party-list congressman
now. While he claims to have been an OFW in his youth, Bertiz owns and heads
the Global Asia Alliance Consultant Inc., one of the biggest deployer of OFWs.
For each deployment his company charges a substantial fee. For him to claim
that he represents OFWs is like saying that a capitalist who was once a
salaried employee and then set up his own business represents the workers of
that enterprise.
To explain what this party-list
system that Cory Aquino and the Yellows made a part of our Constitution, I am
reprinting below (with some minor edits) the first part of a series I wrote last
February this year (“The party-list system is utterly absurd, a mockery of
democracy” and “Cory Constitution gave fake parties House seats”).
Thank you, Mr. Bertiz, for
reminding us that we really have to do away with this mockery of people’s representation.
Abolish the party-list system, which has spawned hundreds of Bertizes since
1998, and even worse, Magdalo mutineer Gary Alejano, Akbayan’s Tom Villarin,
and Carlos Zarate.
Start of February column
If there’s any provision in our Constitution that indisputably has to be deleted, it is the one that called for 20 percent of the House of Representatives seats to be reserved for so-called “party-list representatives” who supposedly represent the country’s marginalized sectors.
Unlike the usual congressmen who
are elected by voters registered in a political district, party-list
representatives are elected by any voter anywhere in the country. The voters
elect not the individual but the party-list group, which then designates him as
its representative.
Cory Aquino pushed for such a
system in 1987, partly to crush the two-party system she hated. But the system
has proven to be so utterly absurd, a scandalous mockery of our democracy. And
we taxpayers shoulder the party-list representatives’ and their staff’s
salaries as well as expenses in the amount of about P2 billion per year.
Instead of empowering the powerless
sectors — “labor, peasant, urban poor, indigenous cultural communities, women,
youth, and such other sectors” as the Constitution puts it — it has only
succeeded in giving political clout to multi-millionaires, even two
billionaires, so they could defend or expand their business interests. It has
also given additional seats in Congress to provincial or regional political
clans, for them to increase their political clout.
Most ironically, the party-list
system has put cadres of the Communist Party in the House of Representatives —
seven at present — giving the insurgency the resources and especially the funds
— raised from our taxes — to advance their agenda to violently overthrow our
democracy.
The political power of Red
party-list representatives and how strategic — and bad for our democratic
system — it has been, was demonstrated by their push for the enactment in
2013—helped a lot by President Aquino—of Republic Act 10368, or the Human
Rights Victims Reparations Law. While the law’s title makes it appear that it
was for a noble cause, the communist party-list representatives designed the
measure such that government would pay as much as P1.7 million to its cadres,
activists, and NPA guerillas (or their heirs) detained or killed during martial
law. Because of this law, even its leader Jose Ma. Sison and his wife got P2.4
million.
It is ironic that the communist
atheists are colleagues in Congress of two bible-quoting religious party-list
representatives.
The Constitution’s Article VI,
Section 5 (2) categorically excludes the “religious sector” from having
party-list representatives. Yet “Brother” Mike Velarde who heads the huge
born-again Christian charismatic group El Shaddai set up his Buhay party-list
in 2001 and since 2004 has had two to three representatives in Congress.
Buhay’s incumbent representatives are the preacher’s son Michael Velarde Jr.
and former Manila mayor Jose “Lito” Atienza.
The perfect example of how
scandalous the system has become is the fact that the purportedly richest
member of the present Congress — both of the Senate and the House of
Representatives, that is — is a party-list representative: Michael (“Mikee”)
Romero, who has reported his net worth at P7 billion.
Who is Romero? He and another
congressman represent the party “1-Pacman,” a name which is as ridiculous as it
is a travesty of our system of representative democracy.1-Pacman doesn’t have
anything to do with our boxing hero (and now senator) Manuel Pacquiao.
The party’s name is intended to
fool careless, impatient, or even ignorant voters that they are electing their
hero Manny “the Pacman” Pacquiao. What the name stands for mocks our
representative system. 1-Pacman purportedly is the acronym for: “One Patriotic
Coalition of Marginalized Nationals.”
The “1” in this outfit’s name —
just as a dozen other groups have done — is there so it would be higher up in
the list of the ballot form, so its chances of being picked are enhanced.
1-Pacman doesn’t even pretend to be
representing any marginal group; merely says that “among its platform is to
prioritize sports development.” That is the kind of party-list representative
we have.
Romero’s case though would explain
why somebody who is so fond of the luxurious lifestyle, who never thought of
helping the “marginalized,” would want to be a party-list representative. Being
a party-list representative obviously gives him the political clout in his
bitter feud against his father for control of the billion-peso Romero
conglomerate.
Clout for business
Other multi-millionaires who have become party-list representatives though aren’t in such deep trouble as Romero. They, or their clans, probably calculate that a seat in Congress gives them clout for their business interests.
The second richest member of the
entire Congress is another party-list representative, Emmeline Aglipay-Villar,
who reported a net worth of P1.4 billion. She is the nominee of the DIWA party,
which stands for Democratic Independent Workers’ Association.
Has the 35-year-old Aglipay-Villar
ever been a leader or organizer or counsel for a union or federation?
No. She is the wife of Public Works
Secretary Mark Villar, the son of one of the richest real-estate magnates in
the country, Manuel Villar. Her P1.4 billion net worth is probably her
estimated conjugal share in her husband’s wealth as shareholder and executive
of his father’s conglomerate.
She is also the daughter of a
retired police general who became Philippine National Police chief during the
Arroyo administration, Edgardo Aglipay. The latter is chairman of DIWA, whose
treasurer is of course Mrs. Aglipay.
How do such multi-millionaires get
to be party-list representatives? Believe it or not, it is unbelievably easy,
as long as one has no scruples in trampling democratic values, and of course if
one sees the investment as a worthwhile one.
A party-list gets a seat in
Congress, if it gets 2 percent of total votes, with another seat given if it
gets an additional 2 percent to a maximum of three seats, with 20 percent of
Congress seats required by the Constitution to be allocated to such
representatives.
In the 2016 elections, 59 seats
were allocated to party-list representatives. To fill up these number, 33 out
of the 46 party-list winners which got less than 2 percent of the votes were
given congressional seats. Thus, the party which got the lowest number of
seats, Agbiag, got only 240,000 votes — just 0.7 percent total votes — to get a
representative in Congress. An Ilocos-based “party-list,” Agbiag, is
represented by another millionaire, Michelle Antonio. Romero’s 1-Pacman party
got 1.3 million votes, so it got him and another representative,
multimillionaire Enrico Pineda, into Congress.
Fake parties
How do artificial, really fake “parties” get the votes needed to win a seat in Congress?
One, they piggy-back on the
electoral campaign of a local political boss and its network — of course after
a huge payment — so the party-list is “carried” in their campaign for the
traditional territorial-based representatives. As will be discussed [in the
next column in the series], this is the reason why many party-list
representatives are in reality mere extensions of provincial and regional
political clans.
Second, I was told by many sources
in the past several years that most party-lists get to have their numbers by
sheer manipulation of returns by corrupt Comelec officials. The going rate in
the 2016 elections, I was told, was from P20 million to as high as P30 million
to ensure that a party-list wins.
Several years ago, I nearly fell
off my seat when a Chinese-Filipino businessman mentioned over dinner that he
was celebrating as his “party-list” had won two seats in Congress, and he spent
only P5 million.
It has been actually the easiest
form of graft income in the Comelec, as the operators need not worry that a
losing candidate would protest, as the party-list contest is not a one-on-one
fight, with nearly every party-list aware that it is after all a bidding game.
That is how depraved the party-list
system has become, which had been billed by the Left and the Yellow Cult in
1987, when the Constitution was being drafted, as Cory Aquino’s legacy to give
political power to marginalized sectors and weaken the traditional pulitiko
parties.
As with all of the Yellow Cult’s
noble ideals, the reality is so rotten.
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