Buhay leads 14 party-list frontrunners

MANILA, Philippines - Fourteen party-list groups are likely to get at least one seat in the House of Representatives, with Buhay leading the race, based on the Commission on Elections (Comelec)’s latest partial, unofficial and uncanvassed results.

The top 14 party-list groups as of 2:46 p.m. yesterday were Buhay with 897,575 votes (4.84 percent) followed by A Teacher with 679,799 (3.66 percent); Bayan Muna, 646,878 (3.49 percent); 1-Care, 582,968 (3.14 percent); Akbayan, 565,218 (3.05 percent); Ako Bicol Political Party, 511,258 (2.76 percent); Abono, 502,664 (2.71 percent); Gabriela, 502,588 (2.71 percent); OFW Family Club, Inc., 495, 122 (2.67 percent); Senior Citizens, 462,283 (2.49 percent); AGAP, 411,650 (2.22 percent); Cibac, 408,485 (2.20 percent); COOP-NATCCO, 406,045 (2.19 percent); and Magdalo, 371,573 (2.00 percent).

Based on the Party-list System Act, only party-list groups that are able to garner two percent of the total number of votes cast in the party-list race are assured of earning House seats.

The Senior Citizens party-list group filed yesterday in the Supreme Court (SC) an extremely urgent petition seeking issuance of a halt order on the last-minute resolution of the Comelec canceling its registration for earlier violation of public policy on term sharing.

“Unless respondent Comelec shall be restrained, grave, severe, serious and irreparable damages would befall herein petitioner and would disenfranchise about eight million senior citizens in the Philippines,” the group appealed in the 44-page petition filed through lawyer Romeo Manalo.

Partial and unofficial tallies from the transparency server of the Comelec showed that the group placed 10th in the party-list elections with almost 500,000 votes as of yesterday morning.

Republic Act No. 7941 (Party-List System Act) provides that a participating group should be given one seat in the House of Representatives if it gets at least two percent of the total number of votes cast in the party-list elections, and an additional seat for every 2 percent of the vote thereafter until a party has the maximum three seats.

A temporary restraining order (TRO) or status quo ante order from the high court would enable the group’s first nominee Francisco Datol Jr. to be proclaimed winner should they get at least two percent of the votes in the party-list polls.

Earlier, the group officially registered as Coalition of Associations of Senior Citizens in the Philippines Inc. but the Comelec disqualified the party-list after its nominees split into two factions and forged a term-sharing agreement for the two seats they won in the 2010 polls.

The two factions both have questioned the poll body’s move with the SC and secured a halt order that enabled their group to be included in the ballot. - With Edu Punay