MANILA – A Commission on Elections (Comelec) division has cancelled the registration of Duterte Youth as party-list.
According to Comelec chairman George Garcia, the ruling was not yet final and the party-list group could still file a motion for reconsideration.
Some progressive groups petitioned to nullify the Duterte Youth for alleged material misrepresentation when it fielded overage nominees in 2019.
Duterte Youth, for its part, questioned why the poll body only implemented the cancellation now when it was filed by Kabataan party-list in 2019.
“If the allegations of the Kabataan party-list was ‘very serious’ in 2019, why did Comelec allow Duterte Youth party-List to assume in Congress after the 2019 elections, be elected again and assume in Congress after the 2022 elections, and be elected again in the 2025 elections wherein millions of Filipino voters elected Duterte Youth to be their representative in Congress,” the group said.
It added: “It is not the fault of the Duterte Youth party-List if the Comelec did not dismiss that ‘hao shiao case’ after its last hearing in 2019. And now the Comelec is trying to subvert the votes of the Filipino people,” it added.
The party-list named after former President Rodrigo Duterte also faced a Comelec probe on Cong. Drixie Mae Suarez Cardema’s surname, whose actual family name is apparently Suarez.
Drixie is the sister of Ducielle Cardema, wife of the group’s chairman Ronald Cardema.
The Duterte Youth, however, had argued Rep. Cardema was using a “political name”./PN
