Palace leaves matter up to PDP-Laban as bid to reopen candidacy filing fails

Acting presidential spokesperson Karlo Nograles on Friday deferred to the PDP-Laban on the party's next move as the Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi-led party's bid to reopen the filing of candidacies for the 2022 polls was junked by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

"We'll leave it up to PDP-Laban as a party to decide their next course of action," Nograles said in a Palace briefing.

"It's a question of law presented to the Comelec, and the Comelec has already responded," Nograles added.

President Rodrigo Duterte chairs the PDP-Laban-Cusi wing.

Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez explained earlier that the poll body junked the PDP-Laban petition to reopen filing candidacies as the Comelec was not a one-trick pony.

“The petition was saying that it is impossible to do all of these things because ‘di pa tapos yung mga kaso (the cases have not been resolved yet). So that is a wrong assertion. This is not the first time that we will be going to print [the official ballots] with pending disqualification cases for example,” Jimenez said.

“The fact that there are pending disqualification cases has never been a reason for suspending the start of the printing of ballots,” Jimenez added. — DVM, GMA News