LEGAZPI CITY: Republic Act (RA) No. 7941, or the Party-list System Act, should be amended because 70 percent of accredited party-list groups do not belong to marginalized sectors, Rep. Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito of San Juan City said.

His statement came after the Commission on Elections recently disqualified 12 party-list groups, including Ako Bicol party-list, from participating in the 2013-midterm elections.

Under RA 7941, sectors that could meet standards as party-list groups are labor, peasant, fisher folk, urban poor, indigenous cultural communities, the elderly, the handicapped, women, youth, veterans, overseas workers and professionals sectors.

“There is a need to review and amend the Party-list [System] Act so that the representation should be in accordance with the law,” Ejercito said in a press briefing at the Pepperland Hotel in Legazpi City, Albay province, where the four-day annual national Junior Chamber International (Jaycees) convention was held.

The lawmaker, a former Jaycees president who is running for a Senate seat under the banner of the United Nationalist Alliance, said that 20 percent of party-list groups were created during the incumbency of former president and now Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of Pampanga province.

“If the Commission on Elections disqualified and single out Ako Bicol as [representative of the region] and other groups, then the poll body should look into other similar and existing party-list groups so that the law should be apply to all,” Ejercito said.