PRES. ARROYO SCORED FOR DESTROYING PARTY LIST SYSTEM

PRES. ARROYO SCORED FOR DESTROYING PARTY LIST SYSTEM:
Voters should remember those who will vote for her speakership bid

NOW IT IS VERY CLEAR. Pres. Gloria Arroyo’s attempt to dominate Congress has practically destroyed the party list system, exploiting the erroneous Supreme Court formula in Banat vs Comelec, to field GMA proxy party list groups in the recent elections. Bayan Muna estimates that more than twenty GMA backed party list groups will get seats in Congress. “Pres. Arroyo focused her resources and funding on allies running in the party list and district congressional elections to ensure her speakership in the House of Representatives” said Rep. Teddy Casino. “ She made sure that her party list groups with her dummies as nominees have more than enough funds to top the party list vote through the support of her LGU allies and TV ads which marginalized and underrepresented party list groups like Bayan Muna does not have.”

“People should remember in the next party list elections all the party list groups that will vote for Pres. Arroyo as speaker. There are two numbers that she wants to achieve here. She needs at least 96 votes to impeach the new president and a total of 144 members to become speaker of the House. With her party list proxies, she could achieve both numbers” said Rep. Neri Colmenares. “The Supreme Court should review its Banat decision now that its erroneously unproportional formula has been abused by politicians and big business wanting a cheap way to get into congress.”

Despite the speed with which the results were reported in the 2010 elections, Bayan Muna remains concerned with the uncanvassed votes especially in the ARMM region. “The canvassing in the ARMM is always delayed, without exception. This will allow national politicians including party list groups to buy votes in the area during the delay. We ask the Comelec to immediately intervene and arrest this delay”, said Rep. Teddy Casino.

“The 2010 election should be assessed on the basis of two factors, internal fraud which pertains to fraud in the operations of the PCOs and external fraud which is committed whether or not the elections are automated such as vote buying, terrorism, and illegal campaigning” said Rep. Colmenares. “While internal fraud is still subject to the random manual audit, it is clear that there was widespread external fraud putting into question the capacity of the Comelec to ensure that the will of the voters are credibly reflected in the ballots. Comelec has failed to act on complaints filed by Bayan Muna against military officers illegally using government resources to campaign against Bayan Muna and other progressive candidates. This is surely a major black eye as far as the party list elections are concerned”, he added.

“It is only through the perseverance and determination of the voters, teachers and poll watchdogs and the vigilance of the Filipino people that we managed to preempt a failure of election”, said Rep. Casino. “While we condemn the massive vote buying, threats and illegal campaigning that took place during the elections, Bayan Muna hails the Filipino people and the teachers who manned the polls for their heroic acts to ensure that Pres. Arroyo will not have the justification to perpetuate herself in power,” he concluded.