Revising the rules it laid down 12 years ago, the Supreme Court on Friday voted to allow political parties and groups not representing marginalized and unrepresented sectors to participate in party-list elections.
The Supreme Court en banc will convene for the first time in 2013 on Tuesday and on the table will be the controversial reproductive health law, against which a Catholic couple has filed a suit, and the Commission on Election’s disqualification of some party-list groups from the May elections.
It looked like a lottery draw complete with numbered ping-pong balls jumping inside a tambiolo or raffle drum—except that the prize was not millions of pesos but slots on the ballot for the party-list elections on May 13.
A group representing Filipino nurses was given the green light Wednesday to vie for congressional seats in next year’s elections but the Commission on Elections closed its doors on 10 more partylist organizations supposedly representing government employees, farmers, migrant workers and orphans.
If he had his way, election chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. said he would like the wealthy individuals barred from joining the party-list elections.
