MANILA, Philippines (Updated 1:14 p.m.) — An election watchdog is backing the call to nullify the registration of the 4Ps or the Pagtibayin at Palaguin ang Pangkabuhayang Pilipino Party-list with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Partylist Watch supported the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s call to consider the 4Ps Party-list’s registration void after it used the department’s “Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program” or 4Ps as its name. Partylist Watch said it is “blatant credit-grabbing.”
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“We laud and fully support the DSWD’s action to safeguard the 4Ps conditional cash transfer program from a partylist that wants to hijack it,” Partylist Watch co-convenor Veronica Alporha said in a statement on Tuesday.
According to a report by the ABS-CBN last week, the DSWD said it reached out to the SEC regarding the registration of 4Ps party-list. It also plans to move forward with its complaint even if the part-list wins.
Philstar.com has reached out to the SEC to confirm if the DSWD has filed a complaint.
The Revised Corporation Code of the Philippines, which took effect in February 2019, provides that the regulation of party-lists are under the jurisdiction of the Commission on Elections. It is not clear when 4Ps Party-list was established.
The government’s 4Ps program is a conditional cash transfer program meant for the “poorest of the poor,” enabling families and children aged anywhere below 18 years old to have access to healthcare, proper nutrition, and education. The 4Ps is one of the core programs of the DSWD.
“The group wants to attract the votes of the millions of 4Ps beneficiaries but they have zero track record in championing the program or the poor who benefit from the program,” Alporha said.
Fake Party-list detector
Partylist Watch also flagged the 4Ps party-list after finding that the group had all four characteristics of a fake party-list.
The poll watchdog considers a party-list fake if it has the following features:
- Run by political clans
- Run by multimillionaires or multibillionaires
- Has no track record in championing sectors
- Implicated in corruption and human rights violations
“Aside from having no experience in championing the interests of the poor, it has links to personalities implicated in corruption in the past,” Alporha said.
Partylist Watch noted that 4Ps party-list's first nominee, Marcelino Libanan, was accused of violating the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act for a fertilizer fund scam.
Libanan, former Eastern Samar congressman, was said to be involved in the purchase of 2,164 bags of fertilizer worth P3.25 million from Akame Marketing International in April 2004. The Sandiganbayan denied Libanan and former Eastern Samar governor Clotilde Salazar’s appeal in August 2020 to junk the graft cases against them.
“Most worryingly, it is linked to a formidable political machine of the Abalos political dynasty of Mandaluyong through its fifth nominee Jonathan Clement Abalos, nephew of Bongbong Marcos campaign manager and former MMDA Chairperson Benhur Abalos,” Alporha said.
READ: Abalos resigns as MMDA chair, now Marcos' campaign manager
Partylist Watch also claims that since 4Ps party-list is connected to the Marcos campaign, “it has also gained access to the huge financial and human resources available to the campaign of the late dictator’s son.”
Philstar.com has reached out to 4Ps party-list for a statement regarding the claims, but it has yet to receive a response as of writing.
Not the first to flag 4Ps Party-list
Last week, another election watchdog released its study on the 177 party-list groups in the country. Kontra Daya’s study also showed that the 4Ps Party-list is associated with a political dynasty and has connections with the government and/or military.
Kontra Daya’s study also marked 4Ps as a party-list “with court cases and/or implicated in PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund) scams.”
“Their website, 4pspartylist.com, is no longer active, and there is little information about the origins of this partylist and when it was established,” Kontra Daya said of the party-list.
Other fake party-lists
Partylist Watch also identified nine “of the most notorious partylists that voters must avoid,” which includes:
- DUMPER PTDA Party-list
- Alona Party-list
- TURISMO or Turismo Isulong Mo Party-list
- Mothers For Change (MOCHA) Party-list
- Duterte Youth Party-list
- Frontliners Ang Bida Party-list
- One Patriotic Coalition of Marginalized Nationals (1-Pacman) Party-list
- LPG Marketers’ Association (LPGMA) Party-list
- Abante Sambayanan Party-list
Partylist Watch said the party-lists have “numerous red flags.”
Meanwhile, Kontra Daya has listed 122 party-list groups out of the 177 listed for this year’s national polls that it claims to be linked to either big businesses or political dynasties.