Party-list maze

PINOY KASI

Party-list maze
By Michael Tan

Inquirer
Last updated 01:29am (Mla time) 05/09/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- With the party-list organizations madly scrambling for publicity, one of them just had to do it. Alyansa ng Sambayanan para sa Pagbabago (ASAP, People’s Alliance for Change) activists romped through a shopping mall, dressed in plastic raincoats with nothing underneath except their briefs (and I don’t mean written ones). Their point? Good governance needs (gulp) transparency.

Innovative as ASAP was, their publicity stunt only showed how the party-list groups have limited access to the public to explain their platforms. Which is a shame because the system, created by RA 7941, was intended to allow disadvantaged groups representation in Congress. Under that law, a party-list organization gets one seat in Congress for every 2 percent they can garner of the total votes. For example, a group that gets 6 percent of total votes cast would have three seats. The law provides that up to 20 percent of the total number of seats in Congress can go to party-list organizations.

The party-list system has allowed a number of legislators to get into Congress without having to use guns, goons, gold or glitter. In previous Congresses, we’ve had a few party-list representatives making it, mainly from politically progressive organizations. Bayan Muna and Akbayan, for example, had three seats each in the present Congress.

Once in Congress, these party-list representatives can make or break initiatives, so I can believe Akbayan’s Etta Rosales when she says that there are party-list organizations acting as fronts for Malacañang, apparently hoping to win seats and block anti-Arroyo moves in the new Congress.

Voting for a party-list group isn’t easy, given the lack of information about the groups, including something as basic as the organization representatives. The Commission on Elections (Comelec) refused to release the list of the party-list nominees until Akbayan filed a case with the Supreme Court. Akbayan won the case and the Comelec has since released the list, which was published in the Inquirer last Saturday.

The list was helpful for exposing some of these party-list organizations’ hidden agendas. One of the more glaring examples is Bantay, which has Jovito Palparan Jr., who has been accused of numerous human rights violations, as its lead nominee. There is also Banat, whose No. 2 nominee is Raul Lambino, one of the main pushers of Charter change.

Knowing who the candidates is helpful, but I still remain in the dark about most of the groups’ platforms. One of my research colleagues, lawyer Mai Taqueban, helped me with an Internet search for websites and platforms. Both of us noted how difficult it was to find websites and for the groups that did have one, their sites weren’t exactly exciting. The party-list groups clearly need to recruit spin doctors and public relations people.

I can’t endorse any one party-list organization, but I thought I’d share some of the possibilities with readers to help them through the maze, or should I say alphabet soup (with a lot of A’s). Because of space limitations, I can list only three nominees for each group. On your ballot, don’t forget that you can vote for only one group. You will be voting for the organization, not for a particular nominee. I’m listing the nominees only to give you an idea of what the organizations stand for.

Progressive groups

The government propaganda machine and the military have tried to discredit many of the party-list organizations as “leftist” -- even “communist.” I’ll say this: we need more leftist parties and I wish we’d reach the political maturity where we can have communist and socialist parties running openly. Throughout the world, including most of Asia, communist parties are legal and engaged in parliamentary struggles. Even the Maoist Communist Party of Nepal, which was engaged in a bloody insurgency for years, just gave up armed struggle to run for parliament.

Our leftist party-list organizations span the ideological spectrum. Akbayan and Bayan Muna have very different ideological positions and are sometimes (often?) at odds with each other. Generally though, the leftist party-list organizations that have won seats in the past have a fairly good record of fiscalizing the traditional politicians and have united on many bills oriented toward social reform.

It’s not surprising that the Arroyo administration has been trying to discredit these groups. The party-list organizations have strong mass membership at the grass-roots level, and garner votes because of their long track record of serving people at the grass-roots level. Here are the progressive organizations in alphabetical order (I have friends in all these groups so I don’t want to be accused of playing favorites):

Akbayan (www.akbayan.org) -- Ana Theresa Hontiveros-Baraquel; Walden Bello; Enrico Dayanghirang.

Anak Pawis (www.anakpawis.org) -- Crispin Beltran, Rafael Mariano, Joel Maglunsod.

Bayan Muna (www.bayanmuna.net) -- Saturnino Ocampo, Teodoro Casino, Neri Colmenares.

Sanlakas (geocities.com/sanlakasonline/?20077) -- Jose Virgilio Bautista, Nilda Lagman-Sevilla and Wilson Fortaleza.

You might also want to consider CIBAC (Citizens’ Battle Against Corruption, www.cibac.org), which doesn’t belong to the Left. Their nominees are Joel Villanueva, Luis Lokan Jr. and Cinchona Gonzales. Villanueva made it to the present Congress and has supported many forward-looking initiatives.

Sectors

The party-list system would have been ideal for boosting sector representation, especially from such groups as senior citizens, or small businesses. Some of the party-list names hint at such representation, but Mai and I could not find websites to describe their work or their platform. The best we can do is list organizations for three important sectors: women, overseas workers and, would you believe, scientists?

There are two women’s party-list organizations worth checking out, both with progressive political lines and with a proven pro-women track record in the previous Congress. There’s Abanse Pinay (www.AbansePinay.com), whose nominees are Teresa Fernandez, Kalayaan Constantino and Yasmin Busran Lao; and Gabriela, with Liza Maza, Luzviminda Ilagan and Flora Belinan. We could not find a website for Gabriela. I will admit personal ties with Abanse Pinay, knowing Kala and Yasmin, the latter being a Muslim development worker and a religious scholar.

Ahon (www.ahonpinoy.org) has more traditional personalities as their nominees (Dante Ang II, Bernardo Ople and Ernesto Herrera), but they have a well-defined agenda about what could be done for overseas workers.

Finally, I’d consider Agham (www.agham.org), a party-list organization for the science and technology sector. There’s irony in having scientists as a disadvantaged group, but that’s exactly who we are in the Philippines, where movie celebrities have a greater say in public affairs than scientists. Agham’s nominees are Emil Javier, Saeed Daof and Angel Alcala. With Alcala as one of their leaders, it’s not surprising Agham also has a strong pro-environment position.