Comelec raffles ballot order of party list groups

Comelec headquarters in Intramuros, Manila. INQUIRER FILES

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Friday conducted an electronic raffle for the 156 party list groups to determine their order in the official ballot for next year’s midterm polls.

Using a program developed by the Comelec information technology department, the raffle presided by the commission en banc was finished in less than three minutes.

The Comelec also made available to the groups the source code of the program.

The raffle was introduced a few elections ago since the party list groups used to be listed alphabetically on the ballot. Many groups aiming to get at the top of the list adopted names starting with A, 1 or even punctuation marks like asterisk.

Most of the 156 party list groups sent representatives to observe Friday’s raffle. For those that failed to send representatives, the groups will still retain the number they got in the raffle.

Similar acronym

Garnering the first spot in the ballot is the 4Ps Party list or the Pagtibayin at Palaguin ang Pangkabuhayang Pilipino. It has one seat in the House occupied by Minority Leader Marcelino Libanan.

In 2022, the watchdog Partylist Watch and the Department of Social Welfare and Development sought to stop the party list group from allegedly using an acronym similar to the government’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program. The party list group countered that it is not associated with the government program and that no entity can legally own the exclusive right to use the 4Ps acronym.

The 156th spot went to Uswag Ilonggo Party, which currently has one House seat occupied by Rep. James “Jojo” Ang Jr.

Sixty-three party list seats in the House of Representatives are allotted for next year’s elections.

Of the 156 party list groups, 42 are participating for the first time. There were originally 160 accredited groups but four decided not to participate in the election.

During the Oct. 1 to Oct. 8 filing period, 192 party list groups filed nomination papers, including those currently appealing their delisting by Comelec or those that presented multiple sets of nominees.

Comelec Chair George Erwin Garcia said delisted groups that appealed to the Supreme Court and secure a restraining order will just be listed toward the end of the ballot. However, this should be done before the Comelec starts printing the ballots in the last week of December.

Winning groups with multiple sets of nominees will not be proclaimed until the dispute is resolved with finality, he added.