Comelec approves UNA party accreditation

MANILA, Philippines - The presidential bid of Vice President Jejomar Binay is now on more solid footing after the Commission on Elections (Comelec) approved yesterday the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA)’s petition for registration and accreditation as a national political party.

In a 13-page resolution, Comelec First Division Commissioners Christian Robert Lim and Luie Tito Guia said they resolved to grant accreditation to the UNA for the purposes of the May 9, 2016 national and local elections.

The commissioners said that UNA was able to fully comply with detailed procedures for the registration of political
parties under Comelec rules.

Records showed that UNA started as a support group for the vice presidential bid of Binay in the 2010 polls and was formally organized as a national political party on Sept. 24, 2014.

Among the requirements to become a political party is that the group “should not be a program of the government, not a religious sect or denomination, that it shall not pursue its goals through violence or other unlawful means, that it is not supported by, nor does it accept financial contribution from any foreign government or their agencies.”

UNA had listed Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco as its president and Sen. Gregorio Honasan as its vice-president.

“The records sufficiently established that petitioner UNA has met all the legal requirements to be registered as a national political party. The constitution and bylaws and other supporting documents show that it is implementing and advocating ‘pro-poor governance and ideology platform’ nationwide,” the resolution stated.

Meanwhile, former Pangasinan Rep. Mark Cojuangco, new chairman of Biskeg na Pangasinan provincial party, urged his partymates to make a formal resolution endorsing Binay’s presidential bid in 2016.

In his speech during their general assembly Wednesday night at a farm of Dangerous Drugs Board secretary Antonio Villar Jr. in Sto. Tomas, Pangasinan, Cojuangco said that Binay could be a good president.

Binay attended the general assembly of elected provincial officials and other prospective candidates in the 2016 elections.

Villar turned over to Cojuangco the chairmanship of Biskeg na Pangasinan, which he founded in 2005 and is duly accredited by the Comelec as a local provincial party. – With Eva Visperas