MANILA – Elections commissioner Rowena Guanzon bared that some party-list groups that won during the 2019 midterm elections are selling their seats in the House of Representatives.
Guanzon said during the Senate hearing on the pending bills on the conduct of elections that this was done due to the substitution of party-list representatives or nominees.
“I am personally against the gaming of the party-list rules because I’m sorry to say that, in truth, a lot of party-lists or some of them sell their seats after they win. They change their representatives or nominees,” she added.
According to Guanzon, nominees could only withdraw, replace, or change the order of their nominees only up to election day or at the close of the polls.
“It is not correct to say that the rule is they can change anytime of the year. Anytime even if there’s only three months left in their term,” Guanzon said.
“There is a law, the Party List Act, and our rules that say they can submit, they can change their list up to close of polls or election day,” she added.
Guanzon also said that the Commission on Elections issued a minute resolution in 2012 stating that a party-list could only submit a new list of nominees if there was a vacancy declared by the Speaker.
“Now if there is a vacancy, they go through their lists because we are required to submit to the speaker who those are going to be on the list, the next on the list,” Guanzon said.
“That’s when they can change their nominees or they can add to it if their lists are already exhausted.”
“There must be a vacancy. The representative must have assumed officer and then resigned, or died, or withdrew,” she added./PN
