THE Duty to Energize the Republic through the Enlightenment of the Youth (Duterte Youth) party-list group yesterday filed a petition before the Supreme Court seeking to prevent former poll commissioner Rowena Guanzon from being named as the representative of the winning party-list group P3PWD.
The 21-page petition was filed by Duterte Youth Rep. Ducielle Marie Cardema and her husband and the group’s chairman, Ronald Gian Carlo Cardema, and their lawyer, Ferdinand Topacio.
The petitioners also asked the SC to issue a temporary restraining order and/or preliminary injunction directing the Comelec to refrain from issuing a certificate of proclamation to the substituting nominees of P3PWD led by Guanzon.
Guanzon, meanwhile, filed unjust vexation and libel charges against National Youth Commission chairman Ronald Cardema before the Quezon City prosecutor’s office.
In her complaint, Guazon alleged the seven counts of cyber unjust vexation and seven counts of cyber libel were committed by Cardema from May 24 to June 17 this year.
Cardema had been critical of Guanzon after he was disqualified by the Comelec from becoming a nominee of the Duterte Youth partrty-list group during the 2019 elections. Cardema was substituted by his wife, current Duterte Youth party list Rep. Decielle Marie Cardema.
In going to the High Court, the petitioners argued that the poll body acted with grave abuse of discretion when it approved what the petition described as the “illegal and belated” substitution of Guanzon last June 14.
“In this case, it is clear that the submission of resignation and withdrawal by the original nominees and certificates of nomination and acceptance of nomination of P3PWD’s new set of nominees on June 14, 2022 is in violation of the deadline set by the Commission’s own promulgated Resolution No. 9366, as amended by Resolution No. 10690,” the petition pointed out.
The resolutions promulgated in 2012 and in January 2021 stated that the withdrawal of nominations and substitution of nominees due to withdrawal shall be made not later than November 15, 2021.
The petitioners said the Comelec violated its own resolution when it allowed Guanzon’s substitution after the May 9 elections.
The petitioners also questioned the haste with which the Comelec allowed the substitution, adding that Guanzon, who served as Comelec commissioner from 2015 until February this year, will benefit from her then participation in a collegial body that approved her own party-list substitution.
The petitioners said it is now clear that the original nominees of P3PWD were mere placeholders for Guanzon.
“Clearly, what was done by P3PWD was a grand deception designed to accommodate Guanzon even if it means betrayal of electorate’s trust and shameless mockery of the law and circumvention of the party-list system,” the petitioners said. — With Victor Reyes
