This series will cover topics involving the law, law school and everything in between told from the perspective of a frightened, enlightened, irritated, and engaged law student. :)
I scanned the weekened papers for a possible engaging topic/news that relates to law, and I can comment/react on squarely. Of course, I could've picked a number of news items since almost anything on the news are law-related, but I wouldn't do that concept/that news justice if I didn't pick it very wisely. So for this week, I pick... party-list representatives.
According to Mr. J Bondoc's article in The Philippine Star: "Pending in the Comelec is a petition of the only 11 sectoral parties that got more than 2 percent of the votes for party-list last May. They rightly contend that since they had met the basic requirement for party-list voting, then their three nominees each should be proclaimed congressmen. But the Comelec has shelved the petition. It will rule only after the special elections in November in three provinces where the balloting failed last time, affecting about 500,000 votes. So the House of Representatives will lack 11 members till then..... Last May only one party got 6 percent. The Comelec proclaimed its three nominees forthwith. Eleven others got more than 2 percent, and were given two seats each. Something odd followed. The Comelec proclaimed 16 other reps from parties that did not even get 1 or 2 percent. Penultimate of the 16 was Mikey Arroyo, of Ang Galing Pinoy. Incidentally, all the seven Comelec commissioners are appointees of Mikey’s mom, former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo." (emphasis mine)
I guess the main issue here is: whether or not Ang Galing Pinoy and the 15 other party-list representatives who got less than 2% of votes are entitled to a seat each despite the existence of other party-list groups who got more than 2% of the votes but were only awarded 2 seats.
To clarify, I'm not claiming that I am an "expert" on this matter but if I tried to answer the question using what we had discussed in Constitutional Law 1, my answer would be this:
Let us revisit the Supreme Court's ruling regarding this matter in the case of Banat vs. COMELEC (2009). In Banat, the Court provided for the procedure of the allocation of party-list seats, as follows:
1. Compute the seats to be allocated to the party-list representatives, taking into consideration the requirement in Section 5(2) of Article VI of the Constitution. Thus, the number of seats available to legislative districts is divided by .80 and multiplied by .20 to get the number of seats available to party-list representatives.
2. Rank every party-list according to the number of votes they got in the elections, from highest to lowest. Divide the total number of votes of each party-list by the total number of votes cast for the party-list system. This is the percentage we will be basing from now on.
3. In the "first-round" of allocation of seats, allot one seat each to every party-list that garnered 2% or higher.
4. In the "second-round" of allocation, the percentage is multiplied by the remaining available seats (total seats minus the allocated seat in the first round). The whole integer of the said product corresponds to a party’s share in the remaining available seats. Assign one party-list seat to each of the parties next in rank until all available seats are completely distributed.
5. Finally, we apply the three-seat cap to determine the number of seats each qualified party-list candidate is entitled.
Using this formula, it is clear that it is legally/mathematically possible for Ang Galing Pinoy and the 15 others who got less than 2% of the party-list votes to be entitled to a seat each because the two-percent cap applies only in the first-round of allocation. If you get 2% or higher, you automatically get one seat in the House. You may be entitled to more but that depends on the computation in the second round. If, in the second round, you get an integer of 1.5 or 1.-something it will still be considered as one seat. Thus, the remaining seats after the second round are distibuted to the parties (according to rank, regardless of the 2% threshold) until everything has been allotted.
I hate to be mathematical when explaining the logic of things because: 1) it sounds impersonal and, to some extent, boring, and 2) I hate Math. But just like Marshall, who explains and proves his points using well-prepared graphs (see photo), I guess I have to get used to it. I find people accepting more readily one's explanation/s when it is supported by mathematical computations, statistics and empirical results as compared to an explanation backed by social theories, and socially-proven facts. Hmmm. Anyway, let us put this entry to an end with:
Lawyered!
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