Dispatch from Crame No. 518:
Sen. Leila M. de Lima on the designation of the Nacionalista Party as the dominant minority party

5/11/19

The Liberal Party (LP) has every right and reason to protest COMELEC's designation of the Nacionalista Party (NP) as the dominant minority party. It's both a legal and political anomaly.

According to the Supreme Court in the 2004 case of LDP v. COMELEC, "the purpose of according dominant status and representation to a minority party is precisely to serve as an effective check on the majority". The Court also notes that "the administration party has always been unnecessarily and dangerously too big and the opposition party too small to be an effective check on the administration".

The Omnibus Election Code defines the dominant opposition party as "that political party, group or organization or coalition of major national or regional political parties OPPOSED to the majority party which has the capability to wage a bona fide nationwide campaign as shown by the extent of its organization". (Sec. 274)

Arguably, our election laws use the terms "dominant opposition party", "dominant opposition coalition", and "dominant minority party", to refer to the party opposite the majority party. But what is clear is that the dominant minority party should be the political party or coalition of political parties OPPOSED to the "majority party", the "ruling coalition", or "dominant majority party". It should not be allied with it.

The criteria used by the COMELEC in determining the dominant opposition or minority party is not the definition provided in the Omnibus Election Code as the party "opposed to the majority party" and described in jurisprudence as the minority party that serves as an "effective check on the majority" and "the administration". The criteria used by the COMELEC in determining the dominant minority party is the criteria for the determination of the ten (10) major political parties as provided in Sec. 26 of RA 7166 and Sec. 34 of RA 9369.

This is clearly wrong. The procedure and criteria for the determination of the dominant majority and dominant minority parties are different from the procedure and criteria for the determination of the ten (10) major political parties. The second major political party would not necessarily be an opposition or minority party, as in the case of the NP, but may in fact be part of the majority party as its majority coalition partner.

The correct procedure is to first determine the majority and minority parties in accordance with the criteria laid down in Sec. 274 of the Omnibus Election Code and as described by the Supreme Court, i.e., those belonging to the administration majority, on the one hand, and those identifying themselves to be in opposition to the administration so as to constitute an "effective check" against it. It is only then that the criteria established in Sec. 26 of RA 7166 and Sec. 34 of RA 9369 for the determination of the major political parties be used in order to determine who is "dominant" among the identified majority and minority parties in their respective categories.

The COMELEC should revisit its procedure for the determination of the dominant majority and minority parties. As it is, its present procedure has resulted in the travesty of democracy, where the administration majority parties have become nothing else but more dominant, and the minority opposition more marginalized than ever before.