13 partylists should not be part of Comelec raffle, says Brillantes

Comelec chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—At least 13 partylist groups should not have been included in the raffle by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for their order of placement in the official ballot, the poll body admitted Friday.

“New partylist applicants that were not accredited by Comelec but were given a status quo ante order by the Supreme Court (SC) should not have been included in the list,” Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. told reporters Friday.

Comelec earlier in the day conducted a raffle of the placement of the partylists’ names on the official ballot that will be used in the upcoming midterm elections.

Brillantes said that the raffle was in order to remove the unfair advantage of partylists with names starting with 1 and A who get placed on the top of the ballot.

Out of the 136 partylists included in the raffle “we noticed some names which should not have been included,” Brillantes said.

New applicant partylists need a mandatory preliminary injunction order from the high tribunal so they could be included in the list.

“There was a confusion [regarding the list] because when the SC gave the status quo ante orders [new applicants and old partylists] were listed together,” Brillantes said.

He however said that the results of the raffle will still be maintained and that they will simply remove those partylists that were not supposed to be included.

The gaps in the list will then be filled up by moving the rest upward to fill the gap, Brillantes said.

With the 13 so far that Comelec has seen, it will leave only 123 partylists left.

Brillante said that they will release the full and official list of the raffle results on Monday.