MANILA, Philippines – Late in March, President Benigno Aquino III approved the creation of a new congressional district for the city of Biñan, Laguna, separating it from the first district of Laguna.

It is the second legislative district that will be contested for the first time in the 2016 local elections. The province of Davao Occidental – created in January 2013 and ratified through a plebiscite in October of the same year – will have its own representation in Congress starting 2016.

The two new districts will bring the number of district congressmen in the House of Representatives to 236, and its total membership to at least 294 (considering the computation of the number of seats for party-list congressmen).

However, the totals may still increase, as there are 14 pending bills, to date, in the Lower House in the 16th Congress (2013-2016) that propose the creation of more legislative districts or the redistricting of existing ones.

If all would be approved in time for the 2016 polls, there would be 15 more new districts.

Two of those bills have already been approved by the Lower House and transmitted to the Senate:

A proposal for the lone district of Lipa City (with a population of 283,468, as of 2010) was also considered by the Senate, together with the measure for the Batangas City district. In February, the Senate committee on local government approved the creation of both districts, according to news reports.

House Bill 4640 was filed for the same purpose, but it remains pending at the committee level. Curiously, it was authored not by Representative Mark Llandro Mendoza (3rd term, NPC) of the 4th district – where Lipa currently belongs – but by AGAP Representative Nicanor Briones, who hails from Batangas and is now on his 3rd and last term.

Eleven more House bills are pending in the Lower House. Among these, 3 seek to reapportion lone districts by splitting them into two.

A similar proposal, House Bill 5002 – filed by Representative Arnel Cerafica (2nd term, LP) – is mainly a bid for the cityhood of the only municipality in the National Capital Region (NCR).

But an additional provision entails the creation of the lone district of Pateros, separating it from the lone district of Taguig City-Pateros. This is despite Pateros having a population of only 64,147 as of 2010, below the requirement of a minimum population of 250,000 for cities to be entitled to separate a district.

Cerafica cites the case of Tobias vs. Abalos, concerning the former Mandaluyong-San Juan district, as an example.

In 1994, a new legislative district was created for Mandaluyong due to its conversion into a highly-urbanized city (HUC). The remainder of the old district, then the town of San Juan, was given its own House seat as a result, despite not being a city and not meeting the 250,000 population requirement.

Cerafica argued that the same should be applied to the Taguig-Pateros district, contrary to the current set-up. Taguig was converted into an HUC in 1998, but only took effect in 2004.

Pateros, instead of being separated from the district, was then grouped with the barangays in Taguig’s 1st council district to form the new Taguig City-Pateros district (or Taguig City, 1st District) in 2007. The 2nd council district was given its own congressional district.

“Pateros should likewise be entitled to its own representation in Congress by making its own legislative district,” he said in the bill’s explanatory note.

Four other bills seek to carve new districts out of existing ones:

Besides Batangas and Lipa, 3 more cities seek their own representation in the Lower House: San Fernando City and Angeles City in Pampanga, and Cotabato City in Maguindanao. All 3 have met the population requirement of 250,000.

Not included in the count is House Bill 1687, filed by Sorsogon Representative Evelina Escudero, who simply seeks the transfer of Juban town from Sorsogon’s 2nd district to the 1st district.

“A cursory look at a map of the province of Sorsogon will show that the town of Juban…is sandwiched between the towns of Magallanes and Casiguran, which both belong to the 1st district,” she said in the bill’s explanatory note.

The 2013 elections featured 5 new congressional districts: the 3rd district of Cotabato province, the 4th district of Bukidnon, the 3rd district of Palawan – for Puerto Princesa City and Aborlan town, carved out of the 2nd district – and 2 new districts for Quezon City after splitting its 2nd district into three.

Elected respectively in the 2013 polls for these districts are: Jose Tejada (who ran as Independent), Oneil Roque (Nationalist People’s Coalition or NPC), Douglas Hagedorn (NPC), and Alfred Vargas (LP) for Quezon City’s 5th district and Jose Christopher Belmonte (LP) for its 6th district.

‘Very political’

According to Prospero de Vera III, president of the Association of Political Consultants in Asia, the recent redistricting efforts in Congress have been “very political.”

De Vera commented on the piecemeal creation of legislative districts, saying that it is a “flawed concept,” a system that becomes subjected to “political partisanship.”

“Congress has never come up with a justifiable criteria on prioritizing which districts should be redistricted first,” he said.

He mentioned the case of the two new districts in Quezon City, carved out of the 2nd district, which had a population of 1.6 million before the split, as well as the newly-created Biñan district.

“What makes them more important, governance-wise, than another district where representation is also very skewed?” he asked.

Among the 14 pending House bills above, only two affect districts in Visayas, while two propose changes in existing districts in Mindanao. The rest are in Luzon.

Meanwhile, among the legislators who filed redistricting bills, 9 belong to the ruling Liberal Party, while only Surigao del Sur Representative Philip Pichay belongs to the Congress minority.

De Vera also noted: “Those who are close to the Speaker of the House or to the majority party, they get their bills [passed] faster than the rest. So kung nasa minority ka, kung gusto mo mag-redistrict, hindi ka papasa. (So, if you belong in the minority, if you want to redistrict, it would be difficult for your bill to be passed.) That’s what is fundamentally wrong with that.”

In addition, De Vera explained the concept of “gerrymandering” or redrawing district lines to create “safe” districts and favor incumbents or the ruling party in succeeding elections.

To prevent these problems, De Vera suggested a general, nationwide reapportionment of congressional districts, as provided for in the Constitution. Section 5(4) of Article VI states, “Within three years following the return of every census, the Congress shall make a reapportionment of legislative districts.”

“Unfortunately, Congress has been remiss in its duty in following the constitutional requirement. We’ve never had a system-wide redistricting,” he said.

The last attempt on general redistricting that reached the plenary level in Congress was filed by Batangas Representative Lally Laurel-Trinidad in the 8th Congress (1987-1992), according to De Vera. This, however, was met with “a lot of resistance from incumbent legislators who were uncertain about their political future” if a nationwide redistricting would take place.

In the current 16th Congress, Cagayan de Oro Representative Rufus Rodriguez filed House Bill 3930, a general reapportionment bill, but it remains pending with the House committee on local government.

Theory vs practice

Section 5(3) in Article VI of the Constitution states: “Each legislative district shall comprise, as far as practicable, contiguous, compact, and adjacent territory. Each city with a population of at least two hundred fifty thousand, or each province, shall have at least one representative.”

The general principle was to have one representative per 250,000 people, said De Vera. It was the benchmark used for the nationwide apportionment ordinance appended to the 1987 Constitution.

But some districts deviate from that principle. One case brought up to the Supreme Court was Aquino vs. Comelec, where then-Senator Benigno Aquino III questioned the reapportionment of districts in Camarines Sur because the population of one affected district after the split fell under 250,000.

But the Supreme Court ruled that population was not the sole factor in apportioning districts, but among several factors taken into account. Aquino vs. Comelec was cited by congressmen in some bills listed above for justifying the creation of new districts with a population of less than 250,000.

As for the importance of redistricting and its benefits to affected constituents, the answer lies in how it should work in theory and how it is actually put into practice.

“The idea [of having the 1:250,000 ratio] is so that representation is not compromised. Because if your district is really big, how would you consult with constituents? How will you get their views? How will you represent their interests in Congress, if there are simply too many, if the district is very large?” De Vera said.

But that is under the assumption that the legislators actually meet with their constituents, added De Vera. “If they don’t see them anyway, then whether the district’s population is 250,000 or 400,000, it is of no consequence if you don’t hold town meetings, if you don’t have a good district office.”

“In theory, yes, [legislators] just use it as a justification. But in practice, many of them don’t go to their constituents anyway,” he noted.

Plus, with the congressmen’s pork barrel or the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) now abolished following the revelation of a scam detailing its misuse, discussions on redistricting changes greatly.

“Before, when each congressman gets the same amount of PDAF, asking why one district with a population of 100,000 or 50,000, and another district with a population of 450,000 or 500,000, both get the same amount of PDAF is valid,” said De Vera.

“But now, if Congress claims that there is no more PDAF, then that argument does not hold water anymore,” he said.

Besides, De Vera argued, projects (like new infrastructure, scholarships, and medical assistance) that were previously spearheaded by congressmen “are better done by line agencies or local governments. So reducing the size does not necessarily mean better governance. The case is representation, not delivery of projects.”

Currently, the creation of new districts is more political that developmental, said De Vera.

“Has the governance and policy-making significantly improved with the addition of new legislators? Are the interests of constituents better heard in Congress?” he asked.

“In fact, the biggest difficulty in selling the idea is, if the quality of legislation and services are not dramatically improving anyway, you can look at these new districts simply as just additional cost centers to government” – that is, paying for the salary of new congressmen and their staff, and the creation of new offices for them.

The new districts would only be important, he noted, if it means better representation and better governance. – Rappler.com