The Commission on Elections is eyeing a shorter list of party-list groups participating in the May 2025 elections, as Chairman George Garcia said it wants to cut down the number of groups who would be fielding bets in the party-list system to around 130, from the 177 that participated in the May 2022 polls.
Garcia said the Comelec wants a shorter list to ensure that only the most qualified groups can run.
“Hopefully, we can reduce the number of party-list groups to just around 130… so that it will really be representative of the truly marginalized and underrepresented,” Garcia said in a radio interview over the weekend.
The Comelec would be imposing stringent rules in the accreditation of new party list groups to reduce the number of participating organizations in the elections, Garcia added. “We have already dismissed 130 out of the more or less 200 applicants,” he noted.
Of the total number of applicants, only 17 have so far been accredited.
Only organized groups duly registered with the Comelec and have filed the Manifestation if Intent to Participate may join the party-list elections next year.
While it was established with good intentions, it cannot be denied by now that the party-list system has been used and abused as a popular loophole by Filipino politicians to stay in power, and so far, the Comelec has seemed powerless when it comes to curtailing that practice. This renewed effort to shorten the list of such groups during the coming elections will hopefully prevent its further exploitation, as it currently seems to be the only recourse left. It would be interesting to see how election officials can weed out the traditional politicians and members of political dynasties that ironically use the party-list system to expand their grasp on power.*
