Wednesday, July 23, 2008 SC urged to rule on party-list system
PARTY-list groups Bayan Muna, A-Teacher, and Abono on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court (SC) to rule on a petition that they filed almost a year ago seeking a revision in its ruling, which grants three seats in the House of Representatives solely to the topnotcher in the party-list race.
The high court held a hearing on the oral arguments on the petition and that of the group Banat on April 22, where petitioners questioned the constitutionality of the First-Party Rule and the need for the immediate implementation of the proportional system of representation in the party-list system.
In a motion, the petitioners asked the SC to rule on the case before President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo makes her eighth State of the Nation Address (Sona) on Monday.
Neri Javier Colmenares, lawyer for the party-list groups, said the early promulgation of the suit will put to rest the controversies hounding the party-list system that has denied millions of voters of their representation in Congress for more than nine years now.
"It has been more than a year since the 14th Congress opened on June 30, 2007 and many party-list representatives, who deserve a seat in Congress if the 1987 Constitution will be followed, have not been proclaimed," he said.
Colmenares said no party, not even respondent Commission on Elections (Comelec), has any political or material interest in the issue as it will not suffer damage or injury whether or not the petition will be granted, as the election body is merely tasked with implementing election laws and rules that it must follow, whether it is under the First-Party Rule or under the proportional formulas proposed by petitioners.
The groups said the early resolution of the case is of transcendental importance as they impact on whether or not the will of voters in the 2007 party-list elections will be respected through the proclamation of their representatives in Congress.
"The party-list system is for the marginalized and the underrepresented and any decision which affects the number of representatives of the party-list constituencies also affects the very essence of this novel constitutionally mandated system and is, therefore, a very important if not historic landmark decision," said the petitioners.
Should the court deny the petition, Colmenares said these representatives and their constituents would at least be "released from the frustrating limbo" they are in for more than a year now, and the Comelec would be apprised of the "correct" interpretation of the party-list law.
He said the party-list system will suffer as long as there is no consistent, predictable and clear rules and standards in the allocation of seats for the party-list representatives.
He added that 15 party-list representatives will benefit to assume their functions for the remaining less than two years of their three-year term should the SC rule to grant the petition.
The formula being used by the Comelec, penned by then associate justice Artemio Panganiban in a decision of the SC, was supposed to have been implemented in the 2001 and 2004 elections but the Comelec used the "2-4-6" computation instead.
Under the "2-4-6" rule, groups that get six percent of votes cast in the party-list elections will get the maximum three seats.
Groups that get four percent gain two seats, while those who get two percent will take one seat.
However, then Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr. said the "Panganiban formula" would be used in the 2007 elections, which earned for the El Shaddai-backed Buhay party-list three House seats.
The SC used the formula in resolving the case of Veterans Federation Party et al. versus Comelec in 2000.
Under the Panganiban formula, party-list groups with at least two percent of votes are guaranteed one seat in Congress. The maximum is also three seats.
The additional number of seats is computed by dividing each group's total votes by the number of votes earned by the "first party," or the top vote-getter in the party-list race.
The quotient is then multiplied by the additional number of seats gained by the "first party" beyond the two-percent minimum. (ECV/Sunnex)
