Plaything of the powerful

Before he became officially a fugitive from the law by evading the warrant issued for his arrest early this year, Jovito Palparan had shed his military fatigues to become that august figure in the political pecking order: a congressman. The former general, labelled “The Butcher” for the torture, disappearance and death of a number of leftist activists and workers in the provinces where he was assigned, managed the neat feat simply by becoming the representative of a party-list group called Bantay, which billed itself as an advocacy organization against communist causes.

Bantay’s first try at the polls in 2007 was a failure; it ended 32nd among the participating party-list groups. But, two years later, the Commission on Elections increased the allotment of party-list seats in the House of Representatives to 55, giving Bantay a slot and leading to Palparan’s proclamation as its representative in Congress in April 2009.

Under the 1987 Constitution, the party-list system is a political innovation intended to give marginalized sectors and small political parties the chance to participate and advance their causes in the legislative process by apportioning to them seats in the House. As history shows, the House is dominated by parties and politicians each with a formidable political machinery; the party-list system is an attempt to level the playing field and to allow voices seldom heard in society to plead their case and engage in public governance.

Was the Philippines ever in threat of a communist takeover now or in recent years? Amid the riot of malls, the rise in technology, the growth of the consumerist urban class, was Filipino society getting more and more enamored of the ideology of Lenin, Stalin and Mao? Those questions have to be asked, because the possibility of the Philippines suddenly becoming a nation of goose-stepping communists would be the only reason a gaggle of anti-Reds might be able to successfully pass themselves off as “marginalized.”

Did the Comelec ask those questions? Did it make the herculean effort of studying the state of the country and determining—with plain common sense as its guide—that anyone who claims disenfranchisement in society because he or she foams at the mouth against Satur Ocampo et al. is being, well, delusional, laughable even? That, in fact, no way could the cabal behind Palparan—no matter how sincere its belief in its cause—qualify as “marginalized” and therefore deserving of a party-list slot in Congress? And that—most absurd of all—Palparan himself, not too long ago the chief enforcer of overwhelming state might against political dissenters, was hardly the person to embody his group’s so-called marginalized status?

Unfortunately, such political grotesquerie is not a fluke or accident, but has become increasingly the norm, as more and more special-interest groups have hijacked the party-list system to advance their own ends in the political landscape. In 2010, the late Angelo Reyes became a congressman not by being voted as such by a defined constituency, but through a party-list group called 1-Utak. Similarly, former Pampanga Rep. Mikey Arroyo, his term over, sneaked through the back door to reclaim a seat and add one more warm body to his mother’s flagging forces in the House as the designated candidate of Ang Galing Party, said to be an association of security guards and tricycle drivers. How former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s multimillionaire son could credibly represent the sector he carries is a continuing puzzlement—apparently even to the man himself, who was hardly heard from in the two years he’s acted as Mr. Security Guard in Congress.

Meanwhile, Catalina Bagasina, whose group Ale claims to represent laborers and employees, and Teodorico Haresco of Ang Kasangga, supposedly representing small entrepreneurs, are—along with Mikey Arroyo—among the top three richest party-list representatives as of 2011 (Bagasina, P133 million; Haresco, P92.8 million; Arroyo: P99.95 million).

Clearly, the party-list system has become a farce, a plaything of the very rich and powerful sectors whose inordinate influence on Philippine politics the framers of the Constitution had hoped to obviate with what looked then like a promising way out of the morass. The Comelec has to do a better job at weeding the fake ones out, and the public has to be more discerning in voting the right ones in.