Party-lists who fail to get 2 percent votes may get one seat

It’s not over for groups who fail to meet the required 2 percent of the total number of votes in the May 10 polls, as they still have a chance to get one seat if the winning groups cannot fill the more than 50 seats in Congress.

Under the party-list system, party-list representatives must comprise 20 percent of the House membership, which is about 57 seats.

Commission on Elections (Comelec) Spokesman James Jimenez said that as of press time, they cannot proclaim any group yet as they need to finish counting of all the votes to determine the 2 percent threshold.

“If you proclaim while the whole that you have is low, your two percent is correspondingly lower. You might qualify numerous groups. Then, if the total percentage of votes rose, your two percent will also rise. This might exclude some groups that you have earlier proclaimed winners,” he said.

Each winning organization is entitled to have a maximum of three seats depending on the percentage they will get. Two percent is equivalent to one seat.

In case the 57 seats have yet to be filled up by those who have met the required percentages, those groups/organizations running next in the race, despite not meeting the two percent requirement, will be allocated with one seat each.

He added that proclaming them now will put them in a tight situation since they would not want to risk having proclaimed certain organizations with the possibility of recalling them afterwards.

Marie A. Surbano with PNA