YOUTH partylist Kabataan hit the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for delaying the proclamation of all winning partylists in the midterm polls, saying that the delay would “open a wider room for fraud and vote manipulation.”
Yesterday, Comelec proclaimed 14 partylist groups that obtained the 2-percent of the votes cast for the party-list polls. According to the National Board of Canvassers Resolution 0006-13, the proclamation is “without prejudice to the allocation of additional seats, or the proclamation of other parties, organizations, or coalition which may later on be established to be entitled to one guaranteed seat and/or additional seat.”
Comelec Chair Sixto Brillantes was earlier quoted in media reports as saying that the commission has not yet proclaimed other winning partylists that have not reached the 2-percent mark as the NBOC has yet to finish the canvassing of votes.
However, as of May 20, the NBOC has already tallied over 95 percent of the total national and overseas votes, with the partylist votes already reaching 28.29 million votes.
“The remaining uncanvassed votes for the partylist elections comprise less than a percent of the total partylist votes, and Comelec can already proclaim all of the winning partylists yesterday if it wanted to. However, it only opted to proclaim the top 14 partylists,” said Kabataan Partylist President and first nominee Terry Ridon.
Kabataan Partylist, for example, has already obtained 337,950 votes according to the May 20 NBOC canvass report, ranking 28th in the partylist race and entitling it to one seat according to the guidelines set by the Supreme Court under the Banat vs Comelec case.
Brillantes said the Comelec will issue another resolution on Monday to proclaim all winners alongside the seat allocation.
“The issue here, however, is the fact that Comelec is again delaying the proclamation of other partylists, thus opening the partylist elections to further suspicions of fraud and vote manipulation to favor well-entrenched partylists that are at the tail-end of the ranking,” Ridon said.
“Rich and well-entrenched partylists that are lagging behind the elections can use their power and money to manipulate the remaining uncanvassed votes in their favor to catch up in the partylist race,” Ridon added.
“Maaaring may mga grupong ginagamit ang kanilang impluwensiya at pera para maigapang pa ang kanilang pagkapanalo sa partylist elections. Many nefarious activities can still occur while Comelec has not yet proclaimed all of the winning partylists,” Ridon added.
The youth leader also criticized Comelec for again threatening progressive partylists with disqualification using “trumped-up” charges of election offenses.
“Rich partylists can also push for the disqualification of partylists like Kabataan for them to clinch a seat. Clearly, Comelec is using the disqualification case against progressive partylists as a trump card that it can use against its strong critics like Kabataan,” Ridon said.