View source for File:Sino'ng Inaakbayan?- An Investigation on How Political Entities Give Rise to Conflict of Interest Within the Policy-Making Decisions of Akbayan Citizens' Action Party.pdf

The study probed how certain political entities and interests influenced the policymaking process of Akbayan Citizens' Action Party. Here, the existence of conflict of interest in the party's actions was looked into. Conflict of interest was defined as factors that adversely affect decision-making, such as the opportunity to gain political advantage.

After taking into account the development of Philippine party politics, the study found that coalition-building is not new in the Philippines, especially for small parties like Akbayan that wish to gain more political clout. However, the party is a curious case because it gained undue political advantage in the aftermath of the alliance. Also being the first party-list to be openly supported and endorsed by a president, its members were appointed to several government positions. Moreover, members of the Aquino family and several other unlikely donors gave contributions to the party's campaign in 2010.

By analyzing platforms, the study showed that the party had to make
compromises to forward their agenda, which leads to the question of whether the
coalition had been useful to their advocacies in the first place. This revealed how the party-list system is too limiting for them to be able to advance their interests and
advocacies.

The findings are in a three-part series written in a journalistic manner.