Former Comelec Commissioner Rowena Guanzon (FILE PHOTO)
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
This was the apparent message to the Duterte Youth party-list group after it failed to stop the proclamation of its archfoe, ex-poll commissioner Rowena Guanzon, as P3PWD party-list representative in Congress.
Guanzon herself said on Thursday that the petition filed earlier at the Supreme Court by National Youth Commission Chair Ronald Cardema and his wife, Duterte Youth Rep. Ducielle Cardema, against her substitution as first nominee of P3PWD had become “moot.”
She said she took her oath as congresswoman-elect on Thursday before Court of Appeals Associate Justice Edwin Sorongon.
“I’ve taken my oath. What is there to file a TRO (temporary restraining order) for?” Guanzon said, adding:
“He (Ronald) said there was an abuse in discretion on the part of the Comelec (Commission on Elections), and it should be stopped by the Supreme Court. Hindi na pwede ipahinto ang tapos na. (What’s done can no longer be stopped.) Moot and academic. I don’t mean to preempt the Supreme Court, but that’s what we always read in [its] decisions.”
Resolution No. 10717
During their weekly meeting on Wednesday, top Comelec officials denied Duterte Youth’s opposition to Guanzon’s late substitution as P3PWD top nominee.
Invoking Comelec Resolution No. 10717 that Guanzon herself signed when she was still election commissioner, Duterte Youth argued that P3PWD filed past the Nov. 15, 2021, deadline for substitution of candidates the party list nominees who wanted to voluntarily withdraw from the elections on May 9.According to that resolution, after the deadline of Nov. 15, 2021, the Comelec would allow substitution only in case of death or incapacity of the original candidates or party list nominees, and only up to midday of Election Day.
The Comelec, however, reminded Duterte Youth that it was also allowed to enter substitute nominees after the 2019 elections.
“Resolution 10717 provides for the rules prior to elections and not postelections,” Comelec spokesperson and law department chief Rex Laudiangco said in the course of announcing the poll body’s decision on Thursday.
He said the Comelec decision was “consistent with the 2019 case of Duterte Youth wherein the commission en banc (full court) allowed withdrawals, substitutions and submission of new list of nominees after the elections.”
Laudiangco also said Sections 8 and 16 of Republic Act No. 7941, or the Party-List System Act of 1995, “allows submission of additional nominees when the list of nominees has been exhausted.”
Public feudDuterte Youth won a seat in the House of Representatives in the 2019 polls. But it kicked off a controversy after its then leader, Ronald, substituted himself as top nominee, only to be later disqualified as overage.
Guanzon and Ronald publicly feuded for months over Duterte Youth’s postelections nominee-switching.
The two resumed their squabble last week after P3PWD’s move confirmed speculations that arose shortly after Guanzon retired from the Comelec on Feb. 2—that she would take over as the party list group’s representative.
On June 15, the Comelec voted 3-1 and approved the recommendation of its law department to allow P3PWD to withdraw all its five original nominees and substitute new ones led by Guanzon.
Among the 63 winning party list groups in the May 9 elections, Duterte Youth and P3PWD secured one congressional seat each.
Laudiangco said the certificate of proclamation and certified list of new nominees of P3PWD had been officially transmitted to the House.
“It is just a matter of formality of transmitting to P3PWD the signed certificate of proclamation in the name of the first nominee (Guanzon),” he said.