DAP EXAMINES REPRESENTATION AND PARTY-LIST REFORM IN CBILLS THURSDAY TALKS
Parañaque City, Philippines – The Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP), through its Capability Building on Innovative Leadership for Legislative Staff (CBILLS) Program, opened the 2026 Thursday Talks Series (TTS) with a multi-sectoral discussion on representation and reforms to the Philippine party-list system on 16 April 2026 at the Sequoia Hotel Manila Bay.
Titled “Reclaiming Representation: A Retrospective on the Philippine Party-list System Towards Representative Politics,” the lecture examined the importance of genuine representation and emphasized the need for electoral reforms, focusing on the party-list system as a mechanism for proportional voice in legislation.
UP Diliman Professor Jorge Tigno discusses the fundamentals of the Party-List System, its formation, functions, and changes over time.
Leading the discussion, Professor Jorge Tigno of the University of the Philippines – Department of Political Science described representation in the context of the party-list system and provided a narrative on its design, functions, and its changes over time. He further added that its inception, which draws from both international and local frameworks, was a “course correction”—a direct response to the previous autocratic system in place. He noted, however, that its implementation has undergone legal and political evolutions, which have made an already fractured system more vulnerable to socio-political exploitation.
Among the most pressing concerns, Prof. Tigno pointed to the system’s growing candidate-centric nature, which weakens party structure development and enables political opportunism. “This allows the individual to create a party rather than the party [shaping] the individual. As long as you have a popular surname or strong connections, you can [form] a party-list and [secure] a seat in the House,” he explained.
A multi-sectoral panel discussion followed, exploring pathways to restore the system’s original intent—whether through targeted reforms or a broader structural overhaul. The session was moderated by Senate Committee Secretary for Electoral Reforms and People’s Participation Atty. Dana Alberto.
(L-R) Panel discussants Atty. Ma. Anne Tonette River, Atty. Ryan Jay Roset, and Mr. Jaime Aguilar reflect on the party-list system’s actual outcomes, or lack thereof, on representation in the Philippine legislation.
Joining the panel were Atty. Ma. Anne Tonette Rivera, Legal Head of the Commission on Elections Office of the Chairperson; Atty. Ryan Jay Roset, Senior Program Director of the Legal Network for Truthful Elections (LENTE); and Jaime Aguilar, Secretary General of the National Confederation of Transport Workers’ Union (NCTU). The panel brought together perspectives from government, academe, civil society, and labor.
ComSec. Alberto opened the panel by inviting each speaker to define what meaningful representation truly means for Filipinos—setting the stage for a substantive exchange on the gaps between principle and practice. The discussion surfaced key structural challenges confronting the party-list system, particularly the competing interpretations of representation that leave it vulnerable to distortion and political manipulation.
(L-R) CBILLS Program Manager Krisha de Leon, Policy Research Office Director Gilbert Lumantao,
Senate Committee Secretary Atty. Dana Alberto, Atty. Ma. Anne Tonette Rivera, Atty. Ryan Jay Roset, Mr. Jaime Aguilar, Professor Jorge Tigno, and Center for Governance Vice President Imelda Caluen.
In their closing messages, speakers called on the public to take a more active role in advancing equitable representation and urged the CBILLS scholars from the Senate and House of Representatives to champion reforms within their respective institutions.
The Thursday Talks Series is one of the components of the CBILLS Program that promotes the discipline of long-term planning and provides an avenue for discussing strategic issues that impact socio-political and economic governance. The livestream of the first episode of the 2026 Thursday Talks Series is available to rewatch on the CBILLS Website at https://cbills.dap.edu.ph/2026-thursday-talks/.
This article is originally posted on the DAP website.