A party-list candidate for the House of Representatives of Bandila, or Flag, Tayag said “the noble intention of the framers of the 1987 Constitution is to democratize an existing lopsided situation where the House of Representatives is dominated by landlords, the capitalist class and their cohorts leaving the 85 percent of the population composed of workers, peasants, informal settlers, urban poor, fisherfolk, government employees, small businessmen, jeepney, truck and tricycle drivers and other poor sectors, bereft of any kind of aggregation, articulation and real representation of their true and genuine interests.”
According to Tayag, “To be marginalized is to belong to the 85 percent of the population that is left with the 15 percent of the resources which they almost single-handedly produced, who are left out of the mainstream of society composed invariably by the ruling classes of our society who monopolize 85 percent of the wealth or the fruits of the labors of the marginalized.”
He added, “To be marginalized is to be propertyless and powerless with only their labor power to sell in the market in contrast to the propertied classes who own the means of production including the land which contain all the other natural resources. These propertied classes do not only have their direct and indirect representation in all branches of government but also manipulate the electoral process through their power and wealth and are invariably the products of elite schools which reproduce their kind of leadership in Philippine society in a perpetual dominance of traditional politics in the country.”
Tayag said “it does not really matter from what class the leader or representative of the marginalized sectors come from. There is such a phenomenon of being déclassé, or turning one’s back to his one’s own class origin ready to act and sacrifice even life and sacred honor decisively, and unconditionally embracing the cause, the true and genuine interest and lot of the working masses, the disenfranchised, the oppressed, the exploited, the hoi polloi, the great unwashed or the marginalized, unrepresented and underrepresented in our society.”
He said there should be “a long and consistent history of service and sacrifice by these leaders for and in behalf of the marginalized and disenfranchised sectors of our society, truly fighting for their genuine interests and grievances through the years of struggles to improve the quality of their subhuman lives. These are the men and women who are fit to lead partylist organizations or the sectoral organizations of the country. Their credentials and records of service and sacrifice cannot be denied because it is well documented in the most recent history of the Filipino people. Their being eminently qualified to lead the marginalized sectors cannot be questioned nor debated.”
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