Dominant majority party: Lakas-CMD; dominant minority: NP, says Comelec
LEFT: President Ferdinand Marcos and his senatorial bets. RIGHT: Former President Rodrigo Duterte and his senatorial candidates. | PHOTO: Official Facebook pages of Bongbong Marcos and PDP-Laban
MANILA, Philippines — Lakas-CMD is the dominant majority political party in the country, while the Nacionalista Party (NP) has been named the dominant minority party for the midterm polls.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Thursday made these announcements after its chairman, George Erwin Garcia, signed Memorandum No. 250378 on Wednesday.
This memorandum determined the dominant majority and dominant minority parties.
House Speaker Martin Romualdez is the president of Lakas-CMD.
Nacionalista Party is being headed by business tycoon and former Senate President Manny Villar.
Comelec said the poll watchers of the dominant majority and dominant minority parties “shall be given preference if the space in [the] canvassing/consolidation center is sufficient.”
They are also entitled to “receive the election results to be transmitted directly to their respective servers from all the polling precincts that functioned and from the overseas voting.”
Lakad-CMD replaced PDP-Laban, which held the dominant majority party position in the 2022 presidential elections.
The Lakas-CMD and Nacionalista Party formed an alliance with the Partido Federal ng Pilipinas, the party of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., to become the Alyansa Para sa Bagong Pilipinas.
The alliance slated 12 senators for this year’s polls.
Meanwhile, the political party PDP-Laban is being backed by former President Rodrigo Duterte.
It has nine senatorial candidates for the forthcoming polls.
Marcos and Duterte have traded barbs during the campaign period.
The president criticized Duterte’s presidential term, including the former chief executive’s policy on China and his bloody war on drugs.
Duterte, on the other hand, accused Marcos of “veering towards dictatorship.”
Such remarks further widened the rift between the two political clans.
This tension was marked by Vice President Sara Duterte’s resignation from Marcos’ Cabinet as the Education secretary.
