This article was first published in Bicol Mail in 2010 and was included in the book, “Kinunot, Kinalas, Kinamot,” a collection of essays about Bicol history, culture and local politics, authored by Luis Ruben General, Jose Perez, and Tito Valiente (published by Goldprint Publishing House, August 2013). On September 28, 2025, the author re-posted this opinion piece on his FB page with a comment, “It has been 15 years since I first said that AKO BICOL was up to no good. Recent events seem to be proving me right.”
Sure enough, on September 29, 2025, Ako Bicol Party List Representative and Chairperson Elizaldy “Zaldy” Co announced his resignation as a member of the House of Representatives amid allegations of corruption in connection with flood control projects and insertions in the national budget, accusations that he denied while traveling abroad.
THE LAST ISSUE of this paper had almost two pages of the reply of party-list hopeful AKO BICOL through its spokesman Joshue Martinez, Jr., to my article “Party-List Shopping” (Bicol Mail, 8 April 2010). Going by what it claims to have accomplished since it was supposedly organized in 2006 (the list is pretty impressive), for a privately funded organization, AKO BICOL has admittedly done a lot of good for the many it has helped or the activities it has supported. If this were a philanthropic organization, or its chairman some sort of a Bill Gates, it fully deserves our congratulations.
But it’s not, and I assume that the chairman does not compare himself to the once richest man in the world who became the biggest contributor to world charity. It’s a party-list group asking for our votes, and we do have the right to ask what this group is, what it’s for and against, the persons behind it, and what it will do in Congress if its nominees are elected and get a cut of the pork-barrel pie.
The reply of Mr. Martinez raises more questions than it has attempted to answer. Yes, the accomplishments are as kilometric as the reply: AKO BICOL has done a lot for the Bicol youth, typhoon victims, the unemployed, farmers and fishermen, gays and lesbians, Bicolano artists, etc. — and yet, finally, its only motive is to get more funding from the government. Listen to Mr. Martinez, “…we could have done more. And that is precisely the reason why AKB decided to enter the political arena to grab the wonderful opportunity afforded by the party-list system of representation. With government’s help, we hope to further strengthen our programs and projects for the benefit of marginalized Bicolanos… an additional funding from the government through additional representation will go a long way in creating job opportunities, alleviating poverty, improving health and social services and spurring economic growth in the region.” It’s tempting to rest my case here but allow me a little digression.
I, too, desire that the government would have a lot of money to give marginalized Bicolanos. And also to all the others claiming to help the groups like AKO BICOL with all its nobility of purpose, of helping marginalized Warays, Pangalatoks, Ilocanos, Mindanaons, etc. But it’s not how the party-list system should be perceived and allowed to work. First, when the Constitution says a party-list system of “sectoral parties and organizations,” it refers, as logical as it could be, to sectors in society specifically named as “labor, peasant, urban poor, indigenous cultural communities, women, (and) youth.” Other sectors may be formed by law, but the basic rule is that the marginalized is a “sector”– an identified class or party which is marginalized or whose common or shared interests are under-represented in Congress. Bicol marginalized or under-represented in Congress? At the last count, Camarines Sur and Norte got each an additional congressman. Bicol or Samar-Leyte, Pangasinan, Ilocos, Mindanao — a sector in society? Let us then do away with our district congressmen; with party-list groups, who would still need them?
The party-list law defines marginalized sectors as those that “lack well-defined constituencies but who could contribute to the formulation and enactment of appropriate legislation that will benefit the nation as a whole.” Bicol exactly has well-defined congressional districts, the constituencies of the district congressmen who are supposed to work for and represent them in Congress. Do we still need a parallel organization for our district congressmen, one that will perform the very same duties that they are already required to do for their constituents? Are we not depriving other legitimate party-list groups whose sectors are really the destitute, the infirm and the poor amongst us and for whom the party-list system was enacted?
Second, apart from getting their fingers in the pork barrel, or profiting from, in the revealing words used by Mr. Martinez, the “wonderful opportunity” of being a party-list representative, the sectoral parties must have their own particular legislative agenda peculiar to their respective sectors. If elected, they will, after all, be lawmakers. Again, we ask, aside from the patronage style, if not feudal-inspired view, of its political representation, does AKO BICOL have any rational and concrete programs designed, among others, for political empowerment to the marginalized Bicolanos who, rather than just being the recipients of the group’s dole-outs, or more than merely being salvaged from floods and volcanic eruptions or treated as fools during elections, would then be able to participate actively in the political and economic decisions that affect their lives just like what the prominent members of AKO BICOL do with theirs?
Does it have anything to do at all with transformational politics that do not depend on largesse or the condescension of our social and political caciques but on true awareness of what makes people poor and how, given the right tools by society and government not out of charity but of obligation, they could get out of their rut? Indeed, what is the legislative agenda of AKO BICOL for Bicol that will also “benefit the nation as a whole,” or are they still trying to figure it out? What bills are they planning to file? Or is asking for funding is all that they will do in Congress?
The Rotary or the Jaycees could also probably do what AKO BIKOL has been doing and promising to do when elected. If its specific activities were helping victims of typhoons and other calamities, AKO BICOL could always attach itself to the Red Cross.
I repeat, that without a definite political objective or framework with a clear supportive legislative plan, any party-list group that goes to the next Congress will just be used and manipulated or influenced or coerced or bought, or all of the above, by the person who is moving heaven and earth in the old power game. Mr. Martinez’s theoretical belief that such a scenario is unlikely is plain naivete and ignores the fact that Gloria has done stranger, more atrocious and more seemingly impossible things. Or, such party-list group will just be there to protect its own hide (the interests of some government contractors who are apparently the financiers of AKO BICOL), and obviously for the power and the pelf.
I wish AKO BICOL luck; with all the money it has invested in the campaign, it is certain to win at least one nominee. I also wish their scholars well and all those who have received their help. The numerous acts of kindness done by the members of this group, if true, are commendable, and I’m sure they will be amply rewarded and recognized.
But as a party-list group, it just doesn’t qualify.
The header image shows the elected members of the AKB Party List with the COMELEC at the ceremony proclaiming 52 party-list groups winners in the May 12, 2025 elections. (Photos by Bullit Marquez for VERA Files, May 19, 2025)
About the author
LUIS RUBEN M. GENERAL is a lawyer, writer, and law professor. He is an alumnus of the Ateneo de Naga University and San Beda College. He practices law in Naga City. Like his late father, Luis General Jr., he is involved with various cause-oriented groups. He is the co-author of the book Kinunot, Kinalas, Kinamot, an anthology of essays on Bicol arts, history, culture and local politics. He teaches at the University of Nueva Caceres (UNC) School of Law.