Restoring true representation: Reforms in party-list system urged

“It’s high time that we amend, revisit, revise our law on the party-list system.” 

That was no less than the Comelec Chairman George Garcia himself who expressed the need for a review of our party-list system. 

The poll body chief merely echoed the sentiment that many of us have been feeling as we witnessed the last couple of elections. It’s sad to admit, but the party-list system – enacted for the sake of the rightful representation of marginalized groups in the halls of Congress – now seems to be exploited to serve instead the interests of ambitious businessmen and political dynasties.

Is it perhaps the dilution of the requirements for party-list participation in the elections that could be blamed for the sad state of elections? 

After the Supreme Court in 2013 ruled that “national parties or organizations and regional parties or organizations do not need to organize along sectoral lines and do not need to represent ‘any marginalized and underrepresented’ sector,” we began to see more and more party-list groups crop up every election since. 

For the 2025 elections, in fact, Comelec received more than 200 petitions from party-lists to be accredited and be included in the polls. Only 42 made the cut, according to Garcia.

“We are hoping that our congress would be able to introduce amendments to our party-list system so it would become a true representation of the marginalized and the underrepresented sector, which is what is enshrined in our constitution,” he added.

The Supreme Court in 2013 ruled that party-list groups did not need to represent any marginalized and underrepresented sector.   (COURTESY:  SUPREME COURT)

Way before the SC’s 2013 ruling, Justice Artemio Panganiban wrote in the Bagong Bayani vs. Comelec case that the party-list system was supposed to be a “social justice tool.” 

And if the system would fall into the hands of those already in command of district representation, he continued, it “would desecrate this lofty objective and mongrelize the social justice mechanism into an atrocious veneer for traditional politics.”

Unfortunately, Justice Panganiban was right. A growing number of political families have now also begun to take advantage of