THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) has deferred the implementation of its decision affirming the nullification of the registration of the Duterte Youth party-list.

Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia said the commission decided to wait for the Supreme Court to rule on the motion filed by Duterte Youth challenging the Comelec decision to suspend the proclamation of the group.

“Comelec will not yet move to implement the decision [of the Comelec en banc]. There is a so-called period of finality of the decision. We will wait for developments at the Supreme Court,” Garcia said.

He said he was confident that in the end, the Court would uphold the Comelec decision.

Fifty-six out of 155 party-list groups that participated in last May’s midterm polls entered the winning circle following an audit by the Comelec that determined the allocation of 63 sectoral seats, representing 20 percent of the membership of the House of Representatives, to the winning parties.

Duterte Youth, which had the second-highest number of votes, 2,338,564, was one of only three parties that earned three House seats. The other two were Akbayan with 2,779,621 votes, and Tingog with 1,822,708.

Comelec delays implementation of decision disqualifying Duterte Youth Party-List, This news data comes from:http://052298.com

The Comelec, however, did not proclaim Duterte Youth.

On May 20, Duterte Youth Chairman Ronald Cardema petitioned the Supreme Court to declare as unconstitutional the May 18 resolution of Comelec, sitting as the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC), suspending the party-list’s proclamation.

It also asked the court to issue either a restraining order or a writ of preliminary injunction to compel the commission to proclaim Duterte Youth as one of the winning party-list groups.