*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD
I still remember the last time I explained the party-list system. It was inside a very hot and crowded in a public high school multi-purpose basketball court manage by the Department of Education with an enormous intelligence fund, with students seated on plastic chairs, sweating in their uniforms, eager to know why this system mattered. I told them it was our way of letting the marginalized finally be heard. I spoke about teachers who buy notebooks out of their own pockets, fisherfolk who brave storms only to come home with little catch, mothers in shantytowns who juggle three jobs yet still find time to serve their communities, and indigenous peoples who struggle to keep their ancestral lands. In their eyes I saw the promise of democracy, and for a moment, I believed we had found a way to make power listen to the powerless.
But
time has a way of breaking promises. I have seen how the party-list system was
slowly taken away from those who needed it most. I have watched it fall into
the hands of contractors who already had their share of government projects,
and into the grip of dynasties who multiplied their control as if Congress were
their private estate. I have heard the whispers of criminals who found
protection in party-list seats, and I have witnessed religious leaders convert
pulpits into political machines. I grew uneasy when reports surfaced of groups
with ties to insurgents entering Congress through this very system, and I could
not ignore the disturbing rumors of party-lists allegedly backed by foreign
powers like China, advancing interests that were not Filipino at heart.
The system that was meant to give hope became a playground for power. The law that was supposed to lift the poor was twisted into a tool for those who already had too much. And the Constitution’s noble vision was reduced to numbers and formulas, especially after the Panganiban ruling that turned representation into arithmetic rather than authenticity. Seats in Congress became prizes for those with clever lawyers, political operator, election fixers, and deep pockets, instead of the lifeline of those at the margins.
This is why Senator Vicente “Tito” Sotto III’s proposed bill matters to me. When I read that he had filed it, I felt something stir inside me—a flicker of the same hope I saw in those students’ eyes years ago. His bill dares to say what many of us have long known but few have had the courage to act on: that the party-list system has been corrupted, and that it must be restored to its true owners. It demands that representatives actually belong to the sectors they claim to serve. It strengthens the power of the Commission on Elections to cancel groups that misrepresent themselves or act against the public interest. It draws a line and says, “This system was not built for the powerful, but for the powerless.”
I care
about this because I have walked among the very people the law was meant for. I
have listened to teachers who work with nothing but devotion, to fishermen who
sail into uncertainty, to mothers who endure poverty with dignity, and to
indigenous elders who defend their land with their lives. These are the people
I think about when I reflect on the party-list system, and it pains me to know
that they have been betrayed by it.
Reform is not just a matter of amending words on paper. It is about restoring faith. It is about telling the poor, the forgotten, and the voiceless that we still remember them, that the law was written for them, that democracy belongs to them. It is about protecting our sovereignty from those who would buy influence with foreign money, and defending our nation from those who would use legal fronts to destroy it from within.
I
believe this is our moment of truth. We can continue to let the system decay,
or we can reclaim it. We can close our eyes to corruption and manipulation, or
we can summon the courage to correct them. We can let cynicism win, or we can
let authenticity prevail.
Sotto’s bill may not be perfect, but it is timely and necessary. It is a chance to bring back the soul of the 1987 Constitution. It tells the marginalized that they are the heart of our democracy. It tells the dynasties, the businessmen, the sectarian leaders, the insurgent fronts, and even the foreign meddlers that this system was never meant for them. And it tells us, as a people, that democracy must be defended not only in speeches and rallies, but in the rules, we choose to live by.
I
support this reform not just as an academician or analyst, but as a Filipino
who refuses to let go of the promise I once explained to those young students.
I owe it to them, and we all owe it to one another, to make sure that the
voices of the powerless are not drowned out by the noise of the powerful greedy
elements of society.
