Party-list winners won't be known yet

MANILA, Philippines - Unlike in the senatorial race, winning party-list organizations will have to wait a little longer to be officially proclaimed.

Commission on Elections (Comelec) spokesman James Jimenez said the poll body needs to count all the votes before finally proclaiming the party-list winners.

Jimenez said the Comelec cannot take the risk of recalling the proclamation of some party-list groups, considering that around three million votes have yet to be canvassed.

“If you proclaim while the whole that you have is low, your two percent is correspondingly lower. You might qualify numerous groups. Then, if the total percentage of votes rises, your two percent will also rise. This might exclude some groups that you have earlier proclaimed winners,” Jimenez said.

“That’s why you have to wait until you have a better idea of how big the whole actually is,” he added.

Under the party-list system, party-list representatives comprise 20 percent of the House membership or 57 seats.

The nominees will be determined after all votes for party-list have been tallied with those who can get six percent of the total votes being entitled to three seats, four percent with two seats and those with two percent with one seat.

If the 57 seats remained unfilled, those who have met the required percentages or those groups/organizations running next in the race despite not meeting the two percent requirement will be allocated with one seat each.

Based on the latest Comelec tally, the party-list groups likely to get a congressional seat are Ako Bikol; Buhay; Senior Citizens; Alay Buhay; Akbayan; Gabriela; Coop-Natcco; Lypad; Abono; and An Waray.

Others groups that garnered two percent votes were Bayan Muna; 1-Care; Cibac; A-Teacher, AGAP; ABC; Butil; Anakpawis; Partido Katutubo; and LPGMA.