Small Means Marginalized?
A critique of the Supreme Court ruling on the Party-list system
Smallness and the rationale behind it, which is, being small is synonymous with marginalization and under-representation. That is what the Party-list system in the Philippines is all about.
By the Policy Study, Publication, and Advocacy (PSPA)
Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG)
April 28, 2009
It is every judges dream of a decision to make. Truly it is a decision that touched more on imprinting a policy than the settlement of a justiciable controversy, one that could have been resolved either way without fear of infringing constitutional tenets. Barangay Association for National Advancement and Transparency (BANAT) vs Commission on Elections et al., G.R. No. 179271, April 20, 2009, and its companion cases is like filling in of details where Congress failed to legislate, an affirmative action to give meaning to the relevant texts of the Constitution and beyond to bring order to the political mess of a party-list system. Read on.
