Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero emphasized the need to revisit Republic Act 7491, also known as the Party-List System Act, following the release of study results showing that over half of the party-list organizations running in the 2025 elections do not represent marginalized sectors.
“I believe that there is a need to revisit it, given that the intent of the framers seems to have been subverted—not only in the Party-List law but also in the numerous decisions of the Court,” Escudero said in a statement to reporters.
Escudero proposed that any review of the law should begin with identifying which sectors need representation in Congress.
“Any such review should start by asking, ‘What are the sectors in Philippine society today that need representation in Congress?’ This list should be exhaustive and exclude sectors that do not require representation. Once identified, we can then decide how to elect representatives for each sector,” he said.
The Senate leader pointed out that a similar approach had already been taken in the law creating the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
“We have done something similar in the BARMM law, where we distinguished sectoral representatives from party representatives,” he explained.
On Wednesday, election watchdog Kontra Daya revealed that 55.13%—or 85 of the 156 party-list groups seeking seats in the House of Representatives—do not represent the poor or underrepresented sectors.
According to Kontra Daya, forty party-list groups have ties to political clans, twenty-five to large businesses, eighteen to the police or military, seven have corruption cases, and eleven have questionable advocacies. Nine party-lists also provided limited information in the forms they submitted to the Commission on Elections.
In 2013, the Supreme Court (SC) ruled that sectoral parties or organizations seeking accreditation under the party-list system may be either “marginalized and underrepresented” or lacking in “well-defined political constituencies.”
The SC identified marginalized and underrepresented sectors as including labor, peasants, fisherfolk, urban poor, indigenous cultural communities, persons with disabilities, veterans, and overseas workers.
Meanwhile, professionals, the elderly, women, and youth are considered groups that lack “well-defined political constituencies,” according to the SC.
“The nominees of sectoral parties or organizations that represent either the ‘marginalized and underrepresented’ or those who lack ‘well-defined political constituencies’ must either belong to their respective sectors or have a track record of advocacy for these sectors,” the SC stated.
The SC also ruled that national and regional parties or organizations may participate in the party-list system.