THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday called on all party-list organizations that will participate in the May 2025 elections to choose legitimate members of their sectors as their representatives to Congress.
In an interview, Comelec chairman George Garcia said naming nominees that genuinely represent their respective sectors would refute criticisms that the party-list system is a sham.
“A lot of people have been saying that the party-list system is a prostituted system… Thus, we appeal to our party-lists to choose true and legitimate members of the sectors they seek to represent as their nominees,” said Garcia.
He admitted, though, that the choice of nominees “is an exclusive prerogative of the party-lists… since it is a party matter.”
Garcia said the Comelec may be compelled to interfere in the selection if a petition is filed questioning the list submitted by any group.
“The Comelec can interfere once a petition to disqualify a nominee or nominees is filed,” he said.
He said such disqualification cases would be risky in the coming elections because of a new Comelec ruling to limit changes in the list of nominees.
“The Comelec will require 10 nominees only to be submitted by the party-lists. And once they run out of nominees, we won’t be accepting additional names or new list of nominees,” said Garcia.
The filing of the list of nominees for party-lists running in the May 2025 elections is set from October 1 to October 8, 2024.
