16 groups eye 22 seats with 13M party-list votes counted

With nearly 13 million party-list votes counted, 16 groups are likely to get a total of 22 Congressional seats, based on the Commission on Elections’ partial official tally as of Tuesday. The Comelec adjourned canvassing on Tuesday noon, saying that the votes left to be counted are from areas still being disputed following allegations of fraud. Buhay (1,064,234 votes), backed by Mike Velarde of the Catholic charismatic group El Shaddai, held on to the top spot with 8.23 percent of 12,294,019 party-list votes, which would give it the maximum three seats. The militant Bayan Muna (871,269) has also so far qualified to get three seats with 6.74 precent of party-list votes. Cibac (689,711) remained at third with 5.34 percent and on track to getting two seats. Gabriela (537,276) also tightened its hold on two seats with 4.16 percent of party-list votes. A dozen party-list groups are also expected to get a seat each, including: APEC (457,393), 3.53 percent; A Teacher (427,408), 3.31 percent; Butil (396,490), 3.07 percent; Akbayan (394,600), 3.05 percent; Alagad (385,928), 2.99 percent; Batas (345,300), 2.67 percent; Coop-Natco (337,065), 2.61 percent; Abono (332,252), 2.57 percent; Anakpawis (324,961); AGAP (303,262), 2.35 percent; ARC (284,337), 2.2 percent; and An Waray (264,580), 2.05 percent. A group that receives 6 percent or more of party-list votes gets three seats in the House of Representatives. A group with at least 4 percent gets two seats, and one with at least 2 percent gets one seat. The Comelec partial tally also showed that 77 other accredited groups have not received the minimum 2 percent of party-list votes. In addition to more than 200 Representatives voted at the district level, there can be a maximum of 50 party-list seats in the House, although only close to half are typically filled following elections. - GMANews.TV