Comelec bars Jalosjos group from 2013 party-list race

MARC CAYABYAB, GMA News

Published October 24, 2012 2:21pm

(Updated 4:31 p.m.) The Commission on Elections has disqualified yet another group — Kakusa, which claims to represent prisoners and penal institutions — from the party-list race next year. Kakusa (Kapatiran ng mga Nakulong na Walang Sala), which is headed by convicted rapist and former lawmaker Romeo Jalosjos, became the sixth party-list group with an incumbent member in the House of Representatives to be barred in next year's polls. The group's representative is Ranulfo Canonigo, a sales manager with a net worth of P2.6 million as of 2010. Jalosjos, former Zamboanga del Norte congressman who was convicted for raping an 11-year-old girl in 1997 but was subsequently pardoned in 2009 due to good behavior, founded Kakusa. The party-list group garnered over 230,000 or 80 percent of its votes during the 2010 elections from the entire Zamboanga region, known as Jalosjos’ bailiwick.

Comelec chair Sixto Brillantes Jr. made the announcement at the Comelec headquarters in Manila on Wednesday.

The Comelec has so far disqualified five party-list groups that have sitting representatives in the 15th Congress — regional party-list group Ako Bicol; Ang Galing Pinoy (AGP) whose incumbent representative is Juan Miguel "Mikey" Arroyo, eldest son of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo; APEC and 1-CARE which claims to represent electricity consumers; and Aangat Tayo representing urban poor, women, elderly and youth.

Brillantes previously said they disqualified AGP because the party-list representing tricycle drivers and security guards failed to appear during the hearings for accreditation.

Also disqualified from taking part in next year's polls are registered party-list groups AGRI, AKMA-PTM, AKO AGILA, AKO BAHAY, PACYAW, PM MASDA, COFA, ARARO, KATUTUBO and OPO. All took part during the 2010 elections.

The poll body has also cancelled the accreditation of three new applicants — RAM GUARDIANS, Alyansa para sa Demokrasya, and Association of Airline and Airport Workers. In the May 2010 polls, 187 organizations took part in the party-list system. Since then, 98 groups have been disqualified or delisted from participating in next year's race.

The six male commissioners are split in their en banc debates on disqualifying nine more incumbent party-list groups. New polls commissioner Grace Padaca was assigned to break that tie.

The party-list system - legislated under Republic Act 7941 - aims to open the House of Representatives to the marginalized and underrepresented sectors.

Brillantes said they are cleansing the party-list system from those who abused the mechanism’s intent to open Congress to the marginalized and underrepresented.

“We’re applying the rules strictly as we want to interpret it strictly… Na-abuso ito noong 2010. Gusto naming linisin ito in preparation for 2016,” Brillantes said.

Earlier this week, the Comelec said it was merely doing its job when it disqualified several party-list groups from taking part in next year's polls.

“We think that there is no violation of the law simply because the law itself provides that the Comelec is empowered to look into the qualifications of these party-list organizations and to determine based on those qualifications whether or not they can run for further elections the following year,” Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said at a weekly-forum in Manila on Tuesday.

“In the past, the Comelec has adopted a very liberal approach to this but we know what happened. Umusbong ang napakaraming party-list organizations… so we are correcting that right now,” Jimenez said, adding that the poll body is following due process. — RSJ, GMA News

Tags: partylist, comelec, kakusa,