Comelec: 62 party-list groups delisted from May 2013 polls

Sixty-two party-list organizations will not be able to participate in the May 2013 polls after they were delisted by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).   In a 24-page resolution, the commission en banc said a party-list group is delisted due to either failure to obtain sufficient votes in the two preceding elections they participated in or has been denied registration “with finality” by the Comelec or the Supreme Court (SC).   According to the law on the Party-List System, those running under a party-list organization must be registered with the Comelec before being allowed to run for office.  

In addition, Section 6(8) of the Party-List System Act says that Comelec may cancel the registration of a party or organization if “it fails to participate in the last two preceding elections or fails to obtain at least two percent of the votes cast under the party-list system in the two preceding elections.”   With this, the delisted groups can only participate in the 2016 party-list polls, said Comelec chair Sixto Brillantes.   “They cannot run in 2013. Once you are delisted, you are suspended for one election. But they can [re-register for] 2016,” he added.   According to Comelec, 29 party-list groups failed to gain sufficient votes in the two preceding elections and 32 failed to register under the party-list system.   Comelec also excluded a partly-list group in the certified list due to a May 5, 2010 resolution, which denied its registration but was included in the official ballots as the decision came only after the ballots have been printed. —AF/VS/HS, GMA News