A SET of election reform measures is being pushed in the House of Representatives by 1-Tahanan Rep. Nathaniel Oducado.
“The current election finance system is badly outdated, and it allows wealthy donors to dominate campaigns,” Oducado, who is pushing House Bill (HB) 8789 or the proposed Campaign Finance Transparency and Modernization Act, said in a statement on Sunday.
“What is worse is that big money can fund campaigns anonymously and without limits,” he added.
Filed on March 25, HB 8789 requires the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to maintain a public online database of campaign expenses and contributions, allowing the public to search by candidate, donor, amount, and date.
On the other hand, HB 8782, or the proposed Political Party Development and Critical Funding Act, seeks to create “a regulated public funding system for political parties to support policy research, political education, grassroots organizing, and internal party development.”
Under the bill, which Oducado filed on March 25, the Comelec would administer a Political Party Development and Democracy Fund, which “shall be used exclusively to provide critical party funding to qualified political parties.”
The bill mandates political parties to submit “itemized reports” on the use of funds.
HB 8782, a “hybrid allocation formula,” would be used to allocate the fund.
Apportioning guidelines “may include a base amount equally distributed among qualified political parties; a performance-based component proportional to votes obtained or seats won in the most recent election; and a matching component that encourages small donor contributions.”
Also, the bill mandates the Comelec to ensure that the allocation mechanism promotes “fairness, inclusivity, and party institutionalization while avoiding excessive concentration of public funds.”
“A political party that, as a matter of policy or repeated practice, systematically accommodates candidates who have recently switched party affiliation in a manner that undermines party institutionalization and organizational discipline may be subject to the reduction, suspension, or withdrawal of access to public funding under this Act,” it added.
This provision, it said, shall apply only as a condition for access to the fund “and shall not be construed as establishing a general prohibition against political party switching.”
Meanwhile, HB 8790, or the proposed Genuine Party-List Representation and Nomination Act, aims to strengthen party-list registration rules and to tighten nominee qualifications.
Oducado said that the bill “amends the registration process by requiring party-list groups to prove, in an evidentiary public hearing conducted by the Comelec, that they genuinely represent marginalized and underrepresented sectors, and that their nominees actually belong to the sectors they seek to represent.”
This bill bans party-list nominees related to incumbent elected officials within the third degree of consanguinity.
