Con-Com 2018 Member
(11th of a series)
Q: Is it on Congress that legislative power rests?
A: No, the draft carefully qualifies “legislative power” as “federal.” In other words, the legislative assemblies of the different federated regions enjoy genuine legislative power. By contrast, the local Sanggunians enjoy only “local legislative” power. While a city, municipal or provincial ordinance must conform to statutes and to administrative rules and regulations, regional legislation, in those spheres entrusted to the federated regions, cannot be legislated by Federal Congress.
Q: Why has the number of national legislators increased over the number prescribed by the 1987 Constitution?
A: Compared to other jurisdictions with lower populations, our legislature is not as crowded as might first be thought. The point though is to broaden the base of consensus. The underlying conviction is that the more the people are represented, the more views that are advanced, the better for the people because the more robust the democracy.
Q: Senate was traditionally a “continuing chamber” but that does not seem to be so anymore because congressmen and senators, together, hold office for a term of four years. Why this change?
A: There was really very little reason, if any at all, to maintain the myth of Senate as a “continuing body”. In fact, in the September 4, 2008 Resolution of the Supreme Court in the case of Neri v. Senate Committee on Accountability, the Supreme Court categorically ruled that for purposes of the continuity of its rules, Senate is NOT a continuing body and therefore must publish its rules at every newly convened Congress. At any rate, to see to it that there is no unnecessary disruption of the Senate’s business, the Draft provides of the senators that: “They shall continue in office until their successors shall have been elected, proclaimed and qualified.”
Q: Why complicate the manner of electing members of the Lower House?
A: (Sixty percent) of the membership of the Lower House will still be elected as representatives have always been elected. However, the system of proportional representation—that was the original intention behind the badly mangled “party-list system”—has been adopted. The Con-Com did not invent proportional representation. It has been in use in such progressive countries as Germany and Italy.
Q: What is the whole point to proportional representation?
A: First, proportional representation makes the voters more attentive to parties than to persons, and it is required that each party uphold the equivalent of the parliamentary “manifesto”: a program of government and a party platform. Second, it is a remedy to that odd situation that results when so many candidates run for a single congressional seat that is eventually awarded to a candidate who has not the majority but a mere plurality of votes. Third, proportional representation makes seats in congress truly representative of the political persuasions and inclinations of the people, given that the seats are distributed in proportion to the votes a party gains in the national elections.
Q: So, just how does proportional representation work?
A: First, the party must be registered. Second, the Draft opts for the “closed list” variant of proportional representation—which only means that voters have no direct influence on who the specific candidates of the party are and the order in which they are chosen. Third, to make it, a party must garner at least 5 percent of the votes nationwide. Fourth, the number of seats a party gets in the House of Representatives will be in proportion to the number of votes the party obtains nationwide. Hence, Party A that has 10 percent of votes nationwide will have twice more the number of seats that Party B, that has only 5 percent of the votes, will occupy.
Q: Does this not dilute the right of the people to choose who should sit?
A: It does, but in a BENEFICIAL manner, for under the system, a candidate will have to subscribe to a party platform and espouse a program of government, win the confidence of party-mates and be nominated by his own party to the closed list. This will prevent the selection of people who build popularity on bases other than competence, ability and integrity. In the proportional representation system, the voters will have to ask which party it is that espouses the plan of government to which they subscribe. This will contribute to the maturation of our democracy.