THIRTY-FIVE of the 190 party-list groups that filed their certificates of candidacy (CoCs) and certificates of nomination and acceptance (CoNAs) have not been accredited, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said Thursday.
Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia said the 35 groups had petitions that were dismissed or rejected, or their motions for reconsideration were not approved, but they decided to file anyway.
Garcia surmised that this could be part of their strategy for bringing their case to the Supreme Court.
Garcia said that the 155 accredited party-lists were comprised of 113 groups that were previously accredited in past elections while the 42 others were newly accredited groups. He pointed out that the number of party-list groups for the 2025 elections is lower compared to the 177 filers in the last 2022 polls.
He added that the commission expected that all 155 accredited party-lists would file their CoCs and CoNAs but only 150 did.
Under the law, party-list groups receiving at least 2 percent of the total votes for the party-list system shall be entitled to one guaranteed seat each. If an organization gets more than 2 percent, it may be entitled to additional seats, provided that no party-list organization can hold more than three seats, regardless of the total number of votes.
Garcia, however, pointed out that even those that would not be able to get 2 percent of the total votes still have the chance to get a seat under the second round of allocation to ensure that the 20 percent requirement is met using the so-called “Banat formula.”
In the case of Banat party-list vs Comelec in 2009, the Supreme Court ruled that the party-list groups should be ranked from highest to lowest depending on the number of votes they received in the elections.
There are two rounds of seat allocation. In the first round, those that received 2 percent of the total votes cast for the party-list are guaranteed one seat each.
For the second round, party-list groups that do not meet the 2 percent threshold will get their chance to be assigned seats to ensure that the 20 percent requirement for the party-list system is met.
