Pro-life group Buhay leads party-list race

A group advocating life led the party-list race as of Tuesday morning, according to a partial unofficial tally based on nationwide election returns.

 

As of 9:30 a.m., the Buhay (Buhay Hayaan Yumabong) party-list founded by El Shaddai leader Mariano "Mike" Velarde led the race with 936,105 votes, followed by A-Teacher with 733,225, and Bayan Muna with 692,648.

 

The other party list groups in the top 20 in unofficial results as of 9:30 a.m.—with the tally representing 67.04 percent of nationwide election returns, or 52,409 of 78,166 election returns—include:

 

1-CARE: 649,997

AKBAYAN: 602,895

AKB: 559,079

GABRIELA: 526,329

OFW FAMILY: 525,077

ABONO: 522,510

SENIOR CITIZENS: 487,738

COOP-NATCCO: 449,250

AGAP: 429,379

CIBAC: 427,417

MAGDALO: 396,624

AN WARAY: 356,179

BUTIL: 327,337

ACT TEACHERS: 318,805

ABAMIN: 311,698

KALINGA: 264,969

ACT-CIS: 264,546

 

Under the Supreme Court's ruling of April 21, 2009, groups that gain at least two percent of total votes cast under the party-list system are entitled to at least one seat in the House of Representatives.

 

However, groups can have a maximum of three seats.

 

The high court said there are two steps in the second round of seat allocation.

 

First, the percentage is multiplied by the remaining available seats reserved under the Party-List System and the 17 guaranteed seats of the two-percenters.

 

The whole integer of the product of the percentage and of the remaining available seats corresponds to a party’s share in the remaining available seats.

 

Second, one party-list seat is assigned to each of the parties next in rank until all available seats are completely distributed.

 

All of the remaining 38 seats are distributed in the second round of seat allocation.

 

Finally, the three-seat cap is applied to determine the number of seats each qualified party-list candidate is entitled. —KG, GMA News