Rural power users’ group says Comelec broke SC rule

A partylist group disqualified by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) from participating in next year’s midterm elections on Friday accused the poll body of arrogating unto itself the power to review a ruling of the Supreme Court.

The 1-Care, or Consumer’s Alliance for Rural Agency Inc., reminded the poll body that the high court, in a decision dated Nov. 23, 2010, affirmed the qualification of 1-Care as a party-list group following the dismissal of a protest filed by another group.

“The Comelec should give credence to the Supreme Court’s ‘decision with finality’ that 1-Care is qualified,” said Carlos Roman Uybarreta, lawyer and 1-Care secretary general.

“To unreasonably challenge or dismiss it for political expediency is an affront to its judicial independence and integrity,” said Uybarreta, who led the filing of a case at the Supreme Court questioning the Comelec’s ruling against 1-Care.

1-Care joined the party-list elections in May 2010 and won two seats in Congress now being occupied by Representatives Michael Angelo Rivera and Salvador Cabaluna III.

“The Supreme Court, considered as the final arbiter of laws, had spoken,” said Uybarreta.

The Comelec delisted 1-Care supposedly because rural electricity consumers, which the group represents, are not on the list of marginalized sectors that need representation in the House.

Another partylist group disqualified by the Comelec, Alliance for Nationalism and Democracy, also protested the Comelec decision.

Pastor Alcover, one of the leaders of the anticommunist group, called Comelec Chair Sixto Brillantes “crazy.”

“He is acting like God. But he will get his comeuppance,” Alcover said of Brillantes. With a report from Jhunnex Napallacan, Inquirer Visayas