Proclaiming Gabriela, Kabataan party-lists despite pending DQ cases based on Comelec’s discretion — Garcia

Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner George Garcia on Thursday said allowing Gabriela and Kabataan party-list groups to be proclaimed as among the winners in the May 2022 elections despite their pending disqualification cases was based on the poll body’s discretion.

In an ANC interview, Garcia pointed out that proclaiming Gabriela and Kabataan party-list, together with 53 more winning party-list groups on Thursday afternoon, does not necessarily mean that their pending cases have already been dismissed.

“In our precedent that we have been following, even if you have a pending case, based on our determination, the cases are not that meritorious, and even if it's meritorious, we can still proceed with the proclamation of these candidates or these party-lists with pending cases. It is based on our discretion,” he said.

In November 2021, Liga Independencia Pilipinas asked the Comelec to act on the petition to disqualify the Gabriela and Kabataan party-lists in the 2022 elections, claiming that these groups were linked to communist rebels.

This was then refuted by the Makabayan bloc, which includes Gabriela and Kabataan party-lists, condemning the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict’s (NTF-ELCAC) harassment of its bloc members and calling the petition “trumped-up.”

Garcia stressed that it would be unfair for certain party-lists if their proclamation will be delayed due to their pending cases, considering that Comelec’s precedents before had also granted other party-lists to be proclaimed under the same circumstance.

“In this case, we exercise our discretion in the same manner that under ordinary circumstances, we are likewise proclaiming candidates even with pending disqualification cases with the Comelec simply because first, there’s already the mandate of the people. Number two, because of the precedent. Number three, what if the cases are really not meritorious?” he added.

He. however, emphasized that if the nominees are being questioned or if there is an intra-party dispute, the party-list would be proclaimed, but not the nominees.

The law provides that a party-list group that gets at least 2% of the total number of votes cast in the party-list race will be entitled to at least one seat in the House of Representatives.

Those who exceed the 2% threshold will be entitled to additional seats proportionate to the number of votes cast, but the total number of seats for each winning party-list group cannot exceed three.

Those who do not meet the 2% requirement may still be able to secure a seat in the House as the law also requires that 20% of House members come from the party-list ranks. — RSJ, GMA News