Party-list election postponement

EDITORIAL

If the political system is in disarray, blame the system or the people running the system.  Take for example the appeal of concerned groups to postpone the party list elections from May 2013 to October 2013, to coincide with the barangay and sangguniang kabataang elections.

Two more party list groups---the Apila ng Bayan Inc. and the Urban Poor Development Services asked the  Supreme Court for the postponement. 

1 ANG BATAS Party List formally petitioned the high court for the postponement of the party list elections, on the ground that the Commission on Elections will have to review the qualifications of all party list groups---those already accredited by the poll body to run in May, and those it had disqualified earlier but which went to the Supreme Court contesting the Comelec’s decision against them---and this will take time.

Alberto Ong Jr., the first nominee of the Apila ng Bayan Inc. and Ronnie Dellamas, also the first nominee of the Urban Poor and Development Services, expressed support for the petition of 1 ANG BATAS, through its general counsel, lawyer Maribel G. Alvarez Domado. Both Ong and Dellamas are filing their parties’ petitions for postponement one after the other.

In its urgent motion seeking the postponement of the party list elections from May to October 2013, 1 ANG BATAS argued that the holding of the elections in October is made necessary by the new ruling of the Supreme Court.

This is so because postponing the party list polls is “a necessary step towards rationalizing the party list system of representation, as provided for by the 1987 Constitution and Republic Act 7941, because the qualifications of party list organizations shall already be determined according to a definite set of guidelines coming from this Honorable Court itself”.

ANG BATAS said the postponement will not derail the entirety of the May 13 elections, as the election for other positions can proceed as scheduled. The party list also argue that the postponement and the holding of the party list elections in October 2013 will not be an additional financial burden for the government since the barangay elections is going to be held in the month anyway.

           

This postponement of the party list elections was sought much earlier by election lawyer Romulo Macalintal, in an interview with ABS CBN. Macalintal’s position was featured in report in ABS CBN’s news website, abs-cbnnews.com, which says in its pertinent parts:

“Since the Supreme Court has issued ‘new guidelines’ in determining whether an organization may register under our party-list system, all existing party-list groups, including those already previously qualified by the Comelec, have to undergo the same summary evidentiary hearing to determine their qualifications under these new parameters prescribed by the Supreme Court,” he said. This would necessitate a postponement of the elections for party-list groups, he said.

“The better rule would have been for the Supreme Court, if indeed it believes in its guidelines to qualify a party-list group, to directly resolve this issue without remanding the cases to the Comelec to prevent a ‘circuitous route’ of these cases,” he said.”

            

Their appeals may have gone to waste since the Supreme Court, which held summer session in Baguio the past weeks, has gone into recess for over a month, leaving slim chances for appeals on election-related cases, including the party-list system to prosper. This,  considering that the next full court session of the SC will be on June 4 – way after the elections have passed.