Bayan Muna bags top ballot spot

MANILA, Philippines — Left-leaning group Bayan Muna yesterday bagged the top spot among all the party-list organizations participating in the May 2019 midterm polls.

Bayan Muna bested 180 other organizations in the automated raffle conducted by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to determine their order on the ballots.

Kasosyo Producer-Consumer Exchange Association Inc., whose first nominee is former Presidential Communications Operations Office assistant secretary Mocha Uson, got the last slot.

The default order of names appearing on the ballots used to be alphabetical but the poll body decided to change this during the 2013 elections, according to Comelec spokesman James Jimenez.

There is a “theory going around” that the placement on the ballots has an effect on the chances of an organization of getting votes, he said.

“The higher up on the ballots you are, the more votes you get” seems to be a popular belief, Jimenez explained.

Party-list groups started adopting “strange names that were geared toward ensuring they were in the top half of the ballots,” he said.

“You could see names that are starting with AAA, not having anything at all to do with the advocacy being represented. So in a way, the sense of a party-list organization is lost,” Jimenez said.

Voters should know the sector that a party-list group is representing by name, he said.

Kabalikan ng Mamayan got the second spot in the raffle while Makakasama sa Sakahan Kaunlaran landed in third place.

Others in the top 10 are Philippine Educators Alliance for Community Empowerment Party, National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms Inc., OFW Family Club Inc., 1 United Transport Koalisyon, Kusug Tausug, Global Workers and Family Federation Inc. and Ang Nars Inc.