Senator Vicente Sotto III filed a bill seeking to amend Republic Act No. 7941, or the Party-List System Act, citing alleged abuses in its implementation. “Through the years, the interpretation of the law on party-list has expanded its qualification and has deviated from the intent of the framers of the 1987 Constitution, which is to truly represent the marginalized and the underrepresented,” he explained.
“The deviation from the true mandate of the party-list system, which is to increase the social, economic and political inequalities, has created the evil that was sought to be prevented by the framers of our Constitution,” Sotto added. The veteran lawmaker argued that the system has been used to advance advocacies that do not serve the best interest of the government.
The proposed Senate Bill No. 192 was formally introduced during the first regular session of the Twentieth Congress of the Philippines. The law initially reserved seats for labor, peasant, urban poor, indigenous cultural communities, women, youth, and other marginalized sectors, excluding the religious sector.
Sotto’s bill seeks to restore the system’s original intent by tightening qualifications and limiting its use to genuinely marginalized groups. He cited a Supreme Court ruling in Bayan Muna vs. COMELEC emphasizing that the party-list system is a tool of social justice designed to empower underrepresented groups.
The decision noted that the mechanism allows marginalized citizens to actively participate in lawmaking rather than being passive recipients of state programs. It warned that allowing dominant political groups to exploit the system would undermine its objectives. Sotto concluded that restoring the system is necessary to ensure it serves as a genuine avenue for the underrepresented.
