Duterte Youth cancelation final

THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) said the cancelation of the Duterte Youth party-list’s registration is final and immediately executory, barring its entry to the 20th Congress.

“The Commission En Banc resolved to deny the Motion for Reconsideration of the Duterte Youth Partylist and affirmed the Resolution of the Commission Second Division in cancelling Duterte Youth’s party-list registration,” the Comelec said in a statement Wednesday.

The Comelec en banc found the party-list’s registration void ab initio, or right from the beginning, due to noncompliance with mandatory publication and hearing requirements, deemed jurisdictional.

It also cited other grounds for cancelation, including untruthful statements in its petition, lack of bona fide intention to represent its sector, and advocacy of violence or unlawful means to achieve its objectives.

Comelec further noted that “it was an adjunct of or an entity funded or assisted by the National Youth Commission,” and that the petition had been filed “to put the election process in mockery or disrepute.”

The commission highlighted procedural irregularities during the 2019 National and Local Elections, including “withdrawal and substitution en masse, as well as the back-and-forth switching of nominees,” which it said “undermine the spirit and intent of the party-list system and puts a mockery in the election process.”

The Davao-based organization garnered more than 2 million votes in this year’s midterm elections, placing second among party-list contenders, with Comelec now tasked to decide which party-lists will benefit from the three seats originally assigned to it. — Erika Mae P. Sinaking