By MIKHA FLORES
PARTY-LISTS are supposed to represent sectoral interests in Congress but when it comes to winning seats, there is nothing like strong regional support or an influential family name to fall back on.
This was the case of many party-list winners in the 16th Congress, which banked on the regional and provincial bailiwicks of their nominees to obtain seats in the Lower House.
Certificates of canvass (COC) from provinces and cities show that votes for a number of party-lists that ran and won in the May 13 elections were concentrated in vote-rich provinces and regions. Party-lists with nominees from prominent political families also benefitted from the influence and popularity of familiar names in their strongholds.
Abono party-list, whose nominees include family members of the Estrella political clan of Pangasinan and Ortega political family of La Union, obtained 79 percent of their votes from the Ilocos region. Pangasinan, which has the third biggest voting population in the country with 1.65 million voters, delivered 378,690 votes which was more than enough for the party-list to get at least one seat in Congress.
