The Philippine partylist system in 2024, based on current composition alone, is a far cry from its incarnation in the late 1990s and early 2000s. 

In place of having Anakpawis, Bayan Muna, and other partylist representatives operating on sectoral interests, relatives of prominent politicians such as Erwin Tulfo and Yedda Romualdez (wife of Martin Romualdez) have been successfully elected. The divorce from the original intent of marginalized sector representation has worsened to the point that anti-democratic incumbent allies are reaping partylist seats, with no signs of reversing as the 2025 elections approach.

What was supposed to be a democratic tool to distribute legislative power to grassroots populations has become another vehicle for dynasticism and democratic erosion. Why and how exactly has the partylist become a weapon against Philippine democracy?

Partylist System Mandate & Its Gradual Downturn

In 1995, the Partylist System was introduced to bolster Philippine democratization by facilitating proportional representation of basic sectors such as peasants, workers, and the youth in the legislature. While the partylist initially saw considerable success in fulfilling this mandate, its democratic provisions and outcomes have gradually deteriorated.

Part of this deterioration can be attributed to the restriction of partylists to a maximum of three seats irrespective of their proportional vote share. This three-seat limit denies genuinely popular partylists proper legislative representation. It also fostered fragmentation via encouraging the proliferation of issue-based partylists within sectors such as agricultural partylists. Broadened participation was prioritized at the cost of degrading the stability of genuine sectoral representation.

Fast forward to 2013, the Supreme Court ruled in Atong Paglaum v. Comelec that non-sectoral political parties are not barred from the partylist race. They also rendered sectoral lines irrelevant with the “shared ideology” basis of partylist eligibility. With these judicial clarifications, partylists as political opportunities for the marginalized was officially phased out.

Elite-Oriented Inclusion 

While some would argue that the Atong Paglaum ruling bolstered inclusion and participation within the Partylist System, this decision has also led to the distortion of the system’s sectoral-grassroots representation in favor of expanded dynasticism. Such poses serious concerns regarding democratic erosion in this institution. 

How much then has this partylist inclusion enabled the actual participation of marginalized sectors and the representation of their interests in our formal institutions?

Unfortunately, following Atong, the number of partylists tied to political clans or incumbent officials skyrocketed, with 70 out of the 177 registered partylists in the 2022 elections featuring said political ties. Despite nominally accounting for only 40% of the total partylists, what must not be overlooked are the powerful political machineries of these ties. Such political resources disadvantage sectoral partylists dependent on painstaking organizing and campaigning efforts at the polls.

Electoral outcomes-wise, this has translated to the rapid rise and normalization of dynastic representatives successfully entering politics through the partylist system. Such an example is Jocelyn Tulfo, wife of Senator Raffy Tulfo, whose ACT-CIS partylist topped the polls and snatched 3 seats from defeated sectoral partylist Bayan Muna.

How does one expect Anakpawis to compete with CIBAC’s Eddie Villanueva and his Jesus Is Lord voter base? How can GABRIELA expect to win 3 seats against dynastic partylists masquerading as regional partylists such as the Singson-dominated Ako Ilocano Ako? 

Further reducing formal-democratic spaces for sectoral partylists are the breed of returnee politicians such as Jose Lina Jr. and Marcelino Libanan who use this post-Atong system to salvage political clout for power. 

Hence, the partylist electoral playing field has shifted so much towards including all possible groups to the exclusion of grassroots representation and spaces. Partylist inclusion has become another means for elite concentration of power. Isn’t such elite particularism a betrayal of the partylist’s original democratization intent and an erosion of its democratic features and outcomes?

Actual policy initiatives and outcomes do not fare better. These winning dynastic or returnee representatives rarely forward bills that benefit basic sectors. Even if they represent a marginalized group, some representatives do not bother to process policies for their benefit.

Or, as would be increasingly become the case during the Duterte era, the policy agenda of these representatives would turn towards the blatantly authoritarian.

Duterte’s Anti-Democratic Intrusions

Duterte’s stealth authoritarianism did not spare the partylist system. Elite-oriented inclusion and the loose partylist criteria of Atong Paglaum were unabashedly used as political opportunities for Duterte’s anti-democratic allies and antics. 

Numerous incumbent allies or former high-ranking military loyalists of Duterte started running under or forming partylists to bolster the president’s majority in the House. Often, these partylists would also support the president’s bloody counter-insurgency agenda and attack democratic norms and actors.

Duterte Youth is the most infamous example, a controversial partylist owing to its questionable eligibility for youth representation. Throughout the 18th and 19th congresses, its representatives Ronald and Trixie Cardema have advocated for militaristic policies including the revival of mandatory ROTC, red-tagged sectoral partylists, and even allegedly harassed progressive student leaders.

Amidst these institutional intrusions of anti-democratic Duterte allies, attacks from external actors also ruthlessly persisted. The remaining genuine sectoral partylists such as the Makabayan Bloc had to endure the ruthless onslaught of President Duterte’s terrorist-tagging from the electoral campaigns up until their legislative tenure.

In worse scenarios, these anti-democratic offensives would employ arbitrary arrest/detention of partylist candidates, as was the case with Anakpawis’ 4th nominee Isabelo Adviento a month before the 2022 elections.

The Duterte regime has thus violently transformed the partylist into both a victim and a weapon of democratic erosion, being co-opted into its vast array of abused democratic institutions. It has been eroded into a platform through which violent political messaging and polarization have been strategically fostered against the marginalized population it was originally meant to empower. 

God Save the Party(list)

Given its democratic backslide, agreeing to certain senators’ calls to abolish the partylist is becoming more tempting. One cannot be blamed for thinking the partylist is a lost cause.

However, this pessimistic view ignores how the partylist remains one of the few state apparatuses with a semblance of an institutional mandate to distribute power towards the grassroots. Section 2 of Republic Act No. 7941 explicitly and theoretically outlines this as proportional representation for marginalized and sectoral groups. 

In practice, though proportionality has not held up, sectoral representation is still clinging to the few partylists that have remained outside dynastic politics or incumbent patronage. Amidst democratic backsliding, these few vestiges of democracy for the marginalized must be strengthened by proposing and enacting bills to address this system’s gaps. These genuinely grassroots and democratic partylists must also be better protected against red-tagging, whether through amending pertinent electoral laws to safeguard their rights or using recent court decisions that debunk red-tagging claims as a starting point to institutionalize rules that penalize such witch-hunting behavior.

There remains room along with a pressing need to repair the flaws and reverse the dangerous judicial clarifications that sent the Philippine partylist into an anti-democratic spiral.  It is all a matter of mustering enough political will to do so. And it must start from harnessing the political resource these few remaining grassroots partylists still have: the people.

Photo taken from Makabayan Batangas Facebook Page