The Negligence and the Violation of the State on the Proportional Party-List System

by Felix P. Muga II

Our party-list system is envisioned to be proportional. Section 2 (Declaration of Policy) of the Party-List Law (R.A. 7941) declares that “the State shall promote proportional representation in the election of representatives to the House of Representatives through a party-list system of registered national, regional and sectoral parties or organizations or coalitions thereof….”

The number of party-list seats available in every party-list election is determined by Section 5(2) of Article VI of the 1987 Constitution which asserts that “The party-list representatives shall constitute twenty per centum of the total number of representatives including those under the party list. For three consecutive terms after the ratification of this Constitution, one-half of the seats allocated to party-list representatives shall be filled, as provided by law, by selection or election from the labor, peasant, urban poor, indigenous cultural communities, women, youth, and such other sectors as may be provided by law, except the religious sector.”

This means that out of five congressmen, one comes from the party-list and four come from the single-member legislative districts. Thus, the total number of party-list seats available is equal to one-fourth of the total number of legislative districts all over the country.

Evidence of Neglect

The State has conducted 4 party-list elections already since 1998. In the 1998, 2001, 2004 and 2007 elections, the total number of party-list seats available was 52, 52, 53 and 55, respectively. However, the Commission on Elections proclaimed only 14 (about 5.4%), 20 (about 7.7%), and 24 (about 9.1%) party-list congressmen in 1998, 2001 and 2004 elections. In the recent 2007 elections, the Comelec decided to implement the Panganiban Formula and based on the latest Comelec Tally (Report No. 29 dated July 11, 2007), there will be a total of 23 party-list congressmen (about 8.4%) that will be proclaimed. The State neglected to fill up even one-half of the seats allocated to party-list representatives.

Evidence of Violation

The principle of proportional representation asserts that the share of the total seats of a party that is qualified to receive a seat is equal to its share of the total votes of all the parties that are qualified to receive a seat.

Hence, by this principle, the (ideal) number of seats that a qualified party is entitled to receive is equal to its share of the total votes of all the qualified parties multiplied by the total number of seats available.
Thus, if a party receives 10% of the total votes of all qualified parties then by the principle of proportional representation, it is entitled to 10% x 55 = 5.5 seats where 55 is the total number of party-list seats available.

If a seat allocation formula actually allocates 5 or 6 seats, the seat allocation error of the formula with respect to the principle of proportional representation is either 0.5 or -0.5 seats, respectively. The absolute value of this error is less than one seat. Thus, the error is negligible, and we say that the Formula affirms the principle. Otherwise, if the absolute error is at least one seat then the Formula violates the principle.

If a Formula violates the principle of proportional representation, then there are votes that are disenfranchised. The number of disenfranchised votes of a qualified party is computed in this way: the whole part of the absolute error is divided by the total number of party-list seats and the result is multiplied by the total number of votes of all qualified parties.

Thus, in our previous example, if the total number of votes of all the qualified parties is 8,500,000 votes and the party is actually given 3 seats, then the absolute value of the seat allocation error is 5.5 – 3 = 2.5. Thus, the number of disenfranchised votes of the said party is at least (2/55) x 8,500,000 = 309,090 votes.

In the 1998 up to 2004 party-list elections, the simplified Comelec Formula was used wherein a party with at least 2% but less than 4% of the total votes is given one seat, if the party obtains at least 4% but less than 6% of the total votes is given two seats, and if the party obtains at least 6% is given 3 seats.

The simplified Comelec Formula violated the principle of proportional representation in the 1998, the 2001, and the 2004 party-list elections by at least 29 seats, 26 seats, and 21 seats, respectively. The violations of the Comelec Formula resulted to at least 1,912,508 disenfranchised votes in the 1998 elections, 2,529,735 disenfranchised votes in the 2001 elections, and 3,301,625 disenfranchised votes in the 2004 elections.

The Panganiban Formula also violated the principle of proportional representation in the 2007 elections. If we based our computation on the latest Comelec Tally (Report No. 29 dated July 11, 2007), the violation of the Panganiban Formula amounts to at least 23 seats and this is equivalent to at least 3,662,334 disenfranchised votes.

The Root Cause of the Violation

The violation of the Comelec Formula and Panganiban Formula on the principle of proportional representation is caused by the following factors:
1. 3-seat cap
2. first-party-rule of the Panganiban Formula
3. 2-4-6 rule of the Comelec Formula

The major cause of the violation is the 3-seat cap. This is shown in our previous example.

The Panganiban Formula is also bound to violate the principle of proportional representation because it uses the 3-seat cap and it based the computation of proportionality on the number of votes and the number of additional number of seats of the first party but not on the number of votes of all qualified parties and the total number of seats available.

The application of the simplified Comelec Formula will also result in the violation of the principle because it uses the 3-seat cap and 2% as the minimum share needed to win 1 seat. This is not correct mathematically and the correct one is 1/(total number of seats). Thus, in the 2007 election, the correct threshold is 1/55 or about 1.818182%.

The State Shall Rectify This Error
It is the primordial duty of the State to respect and uphold the sanctity of our votes. In the proportional party-list system every votes count. If a system of parameters that governs the seat allocation procedure of our party-list system is inconsistent, no formula can be designed to give a correct solution that upholds the principle of proportional representation. A formula that claims to follow this system of parameters will produce a disproportional solution. Hence, the votes for the party-list system will be disenfranchised.

The State shall rectify the error committed by its branches of government on our proportional party-list system. We take note of the error committed by the legislature when it introduced the 3-seat cap, the executive when it neglected to veto this provision, the judiciary when it justified the existence of the 3-seat cap and even introduced a system of 4 inviolable parameters that is inconsistent, and the Comelec when it implemented an erroneous 2-4-6 rule and the absurd first-party rule.

The State shall reject the 3-seat, the first party rule and the 2-4-6 rule and come up with a seat allocation formula that upholds the policy of the Party-List Law and satisfies the 20% mandate of the 1987 constitution.

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Felix P. Muga II teaches mathematics at the Ateneo de Manila University and is a Fellow of the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG). His homepage is at http://www.math.admu.edu.ph/~fpmuga.