Newly-accredited party-list groups underwent tight scrutiny – Comelec

MANILA, Philippines — The 42 newly-accredited party-list groups underwent strict scrutiny while around 200 other applications were rejected, Commission on Elections  (Comelec) Chairman George Erwin Garcia said.

“We did not accredit 200 [party-list applicants],” Garcia said in an ambush interview in Palacio del Gobernador on Wednesday.

“If we weren’t scrutinizing enough, we would not have dismissed these 200 [applications], and we would have more than 300 choices of party-list groups [in the ballot],” he added in Filipino.

Garcia made the remark after election watchdog Kontra Daya convenor Danilo Arao reported that 86 or 55.13 percent of the 156 party-lists who had their Certificate of Nomination and Acceptance (Cona) approved do not represent the poor and marginalized.

The total number of party-list groups in th ballots is only 155 since Wage Hike party-list has withdrawn its Cona.

Of the 155, 113 are existing party-lists and only 42 are newly-accredited which Garcia said is the lowest number of acceptance in Comelec’s history. 

He also noted that Kontra Daya’s study did not distinguish between existing party-lists and newly-accredited party-lists.

“There should be a study on [newly-accredited party-lists] so there would be a fair observation,” Garcia said.