Poll watchdog to name ‘bogus’ party-list groups

by Jaspearl Emerald G. Tan, BusinessWorld, 4 Jan 2022

ABOUT HALF of the more than 160 party-list groups accredited by the elections commission are “bogus,” a representative of an election watchdog said on Monday.

“So far, we have identified quite a lot (of bogus party-lists),” Kontra Daya Lead Convener Danilo A. Arao said in an interview Tuesday over ABS-CBN News Channel.

“We just need to come up with a more exact percentage,” he said. “Later on, this month or the next month, we will be ready to come up with our list.”

Kontra Daya is a non-profit organization that advocates for a more relevant party-list system as envisioned in Republic Act 7941 or the Party List System Act passed in 1995, intended to promote representation of marginalized sectors in Congress.

“(S)uffice it to say that as early as now, it’s not much different from the 2019 study conducted. We’re close to 50% that would be classified as part of political clans, part of big business or have dubious advocacies,” Mr. Arao said.

“We cannot allow the hijacking of the party-list system,” he said. “The definition of marginalized itself would be, for lack of better term, bastardized and prostituted.”

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) conducted a raffle on Dec. 14 to determine the order of the qualified party-list groups on the ballot, which changes the traditional practice in previous elections of listing them in alphabetical order.

More than 100 party-list groups had their registrations rejected by the Comelec. However, the Supreme Court issued temporary restraining orders against the commission based on petitions filed by seven party-list groups whose accreditations were denied.

The poll body was also directed by the High Court to respond to the petitions filed by the party-list groups within 10 days.

Comelec has said that the names of the party-lists with pending Supreme Court appeals will be added to the bottom of the ballot list, and there will be no re-raffle of sequence.

Meanwhile, a full assessment of the mock elections conducted on Dec. 29 will be available next week, Comelec Spokesperson James B. Jimenez said on Tuesday.

“A full evaluation will be made available to us by Jan. 10 by the Office of the Deputy Executive of Operations,” he said in a press briefing.

Mr. Jimenez also confirmed that a hearing for disqualification cases against presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos on Friday will be streamed live on the official Comelec Facebook page as well as that of Commissioner Ma. Rowena V. Guanzon. —