Comelec to abide by SC ruling on partylists

Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The Commission on Elections will abide by the Supreme Court ruling stopping the proclamation of partylist groups, elections chief Sixto Brillantes Jr. said Wednesday.

But Brillantes said the high tribunal would still issue a resolution on the merit of the cases of disqualified party-list organizations, saying “Senior Citizens can still lose.”

The TRO was issued after several disqualified party-lists asked the high court to order a recount of votes.

Comelec stopped from proclaiming winning parylist groups
Coalition of Senior Citizens in the Philippines and 10 others were disqualified by the Comelec and their votes were considered as stray votes.

The Comelec has proclaimed 38 party-list groups for the 53 seats allotted for sectoral representation in the House of Representatives. Only five seats remain unoccupied.

Brillantes said that if the SC allows the counting of votes of disqualified partylists, including Senior Citizens which got at least 600,000 votes, it would affect the final results of the partylist race.

“We now leave everything to the SC,” he said.

“Most of the 12 [disqualified partylist groups] no longer have any chance of getting a seat. Maybe only the top two will have a chance to get a seat, depending on the final decision of the SC,” Brillantes said.

In effect, Brillantes said the TRO validates the previous proclamations of the Comelec.

“My interpretation of this [TRO] is that they validated already our previous proclamations, only the five [remaining unproclaimed] have an issue,” Brillantes said.

“I still believe that the remaining five are still the ones which will be proclaimed, Senior Citizens will still not be able to win, we have to maintain our position that they are disqualified,” he said.

The SC had previously stopped the Comelec several times in implementing its money ban and extended liquor ban, among other issues.

Despite these setbacks, Brillantes felt happy with the SC itself resolving the partylist issue.

“I’m happy, but happier if SC will sustain us [in disqualifying Senior Citizen],” Brillantes said.

“Happy in the sense that they might be the one to resolve the final issues, whether the votes of the disqualified will be [counted] or not,” he said.

Brillantes said he will request the SC for the case to be resolved before June 30 so that when Congress resumes session, all 58 partylists will have been proclaimed.

Comelec is required to file their comment on the TRO within 10 days.