"Once again, voters will be asked to countenance what has become the greatest abomination in the 1987 Constitution."
"Once again, voters will be asked to countenance what has become the greatest abomination in the 1987 Constitution."
The final stage of the drafting of the 1973 Constitution took place after the placement of the nation under martial law by President Ferdinand Marcos, and the finished document did not undergo the constitutionally prescribed ratification process. Upon her installation as President following the success of the EDSA Revolution, Corazon C. Aquino scrapped the 1973 Constitution, promulgated a Revolutionary Constitution and proceeded to appoint 50 men and women to a Constitutional Commission (Con-Com) that would draw up a new Basic Law.
The marching order given to the new members of the Con-Com was to draft a Constitution (1) that would remove the features of the 1973 Constitution that made possible Ferdinand Marcos’s assumption of dictatorial powers; (2) that would improve the nation’s governance structure and (3) that would usher in a better life for the majority of the Filipino people. Composed of men and women who represented all the significant sectors of Philippine society—including individuals associated with Mr. Marcos, such as his Minister of Labor and Employment—the Con-Com went to work quickly in order to meet the before-yearend deadline set by President Cory Aquino for the completion of their task.
One of the areas of the nation’s democratic structure that the Commissioners selected for quick remedial action was this country’s political party system. Believing that the decades-old system of two dominant political parties—the Nacionalista Party and the Liberal Party—had been largely responsible for the flaws and sins of Philippine politics and having in mind the benefits derived by Western European countries from the multiple-party political system, the Commissioners included in the new Constitution a provision allowing the registration by the Comelec (Commission on Elections) of political parties representing sectors of Philippine society that stood no chance of entry into the legislature because of the two major parties’ stranglehold on political power. What the high-minded Con-Com members clearly had in mind were the ‘marginalized’ sectors, such as the fisherfolk, the indigenous peoples (IPs), the small and micro-enterprises (SMEs) and the household helpers.
What has happened to the party-list system provision of the Constitution of 1987—the year in which it was ratified, properly, by the Filipino people—is an example of the saying “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Looking at the profile of the long and ever-lengthening list of party-list Representatives, the Con-Com members who are still with us no longer recognize, I am sure, their well-intentioned innovation. When thinking about the party-list system as it stands today, the words that readily come to mind are ‘bastardized’, ‘perverted’, ‘distorted’ and ‘hijacked’. With all due respect to my Kapampangan friends, they have it right when they pronounce the P in party list like an F.
Webster’s and the Oxford Dictionary will have to be revised if one is to accept that billionaire Mikee Romero’s segment of Philippine society—which segment is that?—is a marginalized sector. Given the reverence that the powerful Catholic Church accords to the human fetus—remember the Church’s virulent opposition to the Reproductive Health law?—how can Buhay be said to be representing a marginalized sector? And are not the regular Representatives of Bicol and Eastern Visayas meant to ensure that their Ako Bicol and Ang Waray constituents are not marginalized? Truly, the word ‘marginalized’ has ceased, in the context of Philippine politics, to mean what the dictionaries say it means. Anyone can now claim that a group of which he is a part is a marginalized sector—even if by no stretch of the imagination can it be so considered—and get it included in the Comelec list of party-list entities.
On May 13 the nation’s registered voters will once again be invited to cast a ballot for a party-list entity. Once again they will be asked to countenance what has become the greatest abomination in the 1987 Constitution.
Hopefully, the coming election will be the Filipino voters’ final encounter with the party-list system of today.
