Social media sensation Deo Balbuena, better known as “Diwata,” who shot to fame after briefly appearing in a popular long-running television series, has joined the political fray.
Diwata has been registered as the fourth nominee of the Vendors Party-List even though he has no political experience or training.
The little-known Vendors Party-List is apparently banking on Diwata’s popularity to win seats in May’s midterm elections.
However, even if Diwata’s Vendors Party-List wins big, he has no chance of sitting in the House of Representatives because the law only allows three party-list members in Congress.
Diwata is not alone. Other social media sensations, like Mark Gamboa and RoseMar Tan, have filed their certificates of candidacy for national and local legislative bodies.
Campaigning for seats in the Senate or a party-list seat in the House of Representatives is difficult and expensive because a candidate has to move around the entire archipelago to court support.
Campaigning for local seats in congressional districts or city and municipal positions is much easier.
Political families that have dominated politics for decades have found it easier to win executive and legislative seats, particularly in areas considered their bailiwicks.
Thus, the Philippines sees political dynasties expanding and fattening vertically and horizontally as parent-children, spouses, siblings, and in-laws simultaneously hold positions of power and influence.
The country’s party-list system could be the easiest way for political families and big business interests to win executive and legislative positions.
Under the law, at least 20 percent of seats in the House of Representatives are reserved for party-list groups.
Next year, 63 seats will be occupied by party-list groups. District representatives will have 254 seats.
Party-List groups only need 2 percent of the total eligible votes cast to get a seat. Suppose the groups garner more than 6 percent of the votes. In that case, they get a maximum of three seats, like the ACT-CIS group, bannered by former Cabinet member and broadcaster Erwin Tulfo and his sister-in-law Josephine, the wife of elder brother Raffy, an incumbent senator.
Next year, there is a plan for Josephine to seek a congressional seat in a northern province while her daughter runs for a party-list group.
Erwin and another brother, Ben, will try their luck in the Senate, hoping to join their brother, Raffy.
Philippine politics is one big, happy family.
The party-list system in the Philippines was introduced in the 1987 Constitution to democratize the system further, allowing underrepresented members of society to have a voice in the legislature.
In 1998, when the first party-list elections were held, marginalized sectors, like farmers, labor, urban poor, women, youth, and indigenous groups, were allowed.
Only religious groups were banned from taking part in the balloting.
In 2013, a Supreme Court ruling opened the party-list system to all groups, not exclusively to the marginalized sectors.
Political clans and big businesses exploited the party-list system to protect their vested interests.
A son of former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had won a seat representing security guards and tricycle drivers.
Even the former general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), Royina Garma, a retired police officer, set up her party-list with her cousin’s wife as a nominee.
Traditional political parties that could not win seats in national elections have also organized party-list groups.
Former senator Leila de Lima and human rights lawyer Manuel Diokno, who have difficulty winning seats in the Senate, planned to run under party-list groups to get into the legislature.
Party-list groups only needed more than 200,000 votes to get a seat in Congress. It’s like running for a congressional district seat or a local executive and legislative position.
That is even much easier than a senator who needs a minimum of 15 million votes to get a seat.
It is optional for a party-list group to have a nationwide presence. It could win a seat if it gets the required threshold of votes in one region or two or three areas.
If the party-list groups did not meet the required 2 percent votes cast, the Commission on Elections could rank the groups in descending order and fill up the 63 seats in the House of Representatives, giving a group that did not meet the 2 percent requirement at least one seat each.
Thus, a party-list group with less than 200,000 votes can get a seat in Congress.
The system allows more party-list groups to win seats in the House of Representatives, widening the representation in the country’s democracy.
However, it also expands the chances of political families and big business interests dominating politics and protecting vested interests.
Diwata’s nomination to a party-list group displays big business and political interests’ efforts to extend their clout, influence, and power.
MANUEL “MANNY” P. MOGATO is Editor-at-Large and opinion writer, writing under the column “In the Trenches.” As Reuters Manila correspondent, he and two other colleagues won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2018 for their coverage of the Duterte administration’s war on drugs.
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