Cardema addresses petition vs Duterte Youth party-list’s registration

MANILA, Philippines — The grounds used in the revived petition against the Duterte Youth party list was the same argument used by a case that has since been dismissed by the Supreme Court (SC), its former nominee Ronald Cardema said on Wednesday.

In 2021, the SC dismissed a petition by a group aligned with Akbayan which sought to stop the proclamation of Duterte Youth as they alleged that the party-list was not registered to join the 2019 elections.

This is the same argument raised by petitioner Ross Angcos, which sought to cancel the registration of the party-list, according to Cardema.

Cardema said he would write a letter to inform the Comelec about this.

“We will write to the Comelec that the Supreme Court has already decided [on the matter],” Cardema told INQUIRER.net in a phone interview.

READ: ‘Verdict on petition vs Duterte Youth’s registration out before polls’

On Tuesday,  Kabataan Tayo ang Pag-asa (KTAP) national convenor Brell Lacerna filed an urgent motion for Comelec to resolve Angcos’ petition to cancel the party-list registration and/or declare the nullity of registration against Duterte Youth.

Angcos filed the petition on September 3, 2019.

Cardema asserted that the Duterte Youth submitted a petition for registration before the Comelec, but they have waited for the poll body’s “order to publish.”

However, he said the Comelec did not give him an order to publish.

“As a petitioner, I was not given an order to publish. And it was stated in the law that the Comelec should publish,” Cardema said.

“They were the ones required [to do so] and they did.”

For Cardema, such petitions were made against them due to their good survey rankings.

Duterte Youth is running for reelection in the 2025 polls.