Akbayan, Butil bets to be proclaimed

Two more party list representatives will take their seats in Congress to join early entrants Satur Ocampo, Crispin Beltran and Liza Maza of Bayan Muna following a Supreme Court (SC) ruling ordering the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to proclaim them.

Loreta Ann Rosales of Akbayan will be sitting in the House for a second term, along with neophyte legislator Benjamin Cruz, a geodetic and civil engineer, representing the Luzon Farmers Party, also called Butil.

Bayan Muna was allocated three seats for having garnered 1.7 million votes, or 11.3 percent of the total votes cast in the May 14 local and national elections for the party-list polls. Akbayan was second with 373,595 votes, or 2.5 percent, followed by Butil with 325,920 votes representing 2.2 percent of the total votes cast.

Five other nominees of Akbayan – Mario Aguja, Gerardo Bulatao, Vicente Fabe, Arlene Bag-ao and Alvin Dizon – were disqualified.

In a three-page resolution, the SC partially lifted its May 9 order suspending the party-list proclamation and directed the Comelec to proclaim Akbayan and Butil as among the winners in the party-list voting.

Comelec officials said Butil has the ability to "formulate and enact legislation specifically geared towards the upliftment of farmers, and the improvement of the state of the country’s agricultural sector."

The poll body said only Bayan Muna, Akbayan and Butil have met the party-list requirements, "being true representatives of the marginalized and under-represented sectors."

Four other party-list groups – Partido ng Manggagawa, Sanlakas, Alyansang Bayanihan ng mga Magsasaka, and Manggagawang Bukid at Mangingisda – passed the rigid evaluation but failed to muster the required number of votes.

Those disqualified were Mamamayan Ayaw sa Droga (MAD), Marcos Loyalists, CREBA, Cibac and mainstream political parties such as Lakas-NUCD, Nationalist People’s Coalition, Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino, Aksyon Demokratiko, Promdi, Liberal Party, Kilusang Bagong Lipunan and Reporma.

Comelec ruled that MAD, whose top nominee was actor Richard Gomez, did not represent the marginalized and under-represented sectors of society. It pointed out that MAD was conceptualized by the government and is therefore disqualified as a party–list group.

"MAD is clearly an entity of the sort contemplated by the Court. It was, in fact, originally conceptualized by Police director Jewel Canson, merely as a campaign vehicle in the drug awareness program," the poll body explained.

Bayan Muna and Ang Bagong Bayani OFW have sought the disqualification of 154 non-marginalized groups which joined the polls.