Leading PL to get 3 seats — Comelec

The top ranked partylist organization in the recently concluded elections will get maximum three seats in the House of Representatives (HOR), a Commission on Elections (Comelec) official disclosed on Tuesday, May 17.

“Whoever will get the number one seat or the number one rank will have automatically the three seats. Whether they will get eight percent, 10 percent whatever, they will only get the maximum three seats,” said Comelec Commissioner George Erwin Garcia in a press briefing.

"That is why even if a partylist obtains 7.5 percent of the total votes cast but it is only ranked number two, that partylist will be entitled only to two seats. It may be equivalent [with a partylist that obtained] four percent only but just the same, it's only entitled to two seats. There's only one partylist organization that is entitled to three seats and that is the first in rank partylist organization," he added.

The Anti-Crime and Terrorism Community Involvement and Support Partylist (ACT-CIS) continues to lead the partylist race based on the latest canvass report released by the Comelec en banc.

Canvass Report No. 6 released by the Comelec Tuesday showed ACTCIS leading with 2,103,127 votes of the 159 certificates of canvass (COCs) that were counted by the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC). ACTCIS’s votes represent 5.7997 percent of the total 55,408,244 votes canvassed by the NBOC as of Monday morning, May 16.

ACT-CIS’ votes are expected to further increase as Comelec already finished canvassing 172 of the 173 COCs as of Monday night.

Aside from ACT-CIS, the five other partylist groups which secured at least two percent of the total votes cast are 1-Rider Partylist with 999,655 votes (2.7567 percent); Tingog with 884,709 votes (2.4397 percent), 4PS with 834,367 votes (2.3009 percent), Ako Bicol with 815,892 votes (2.2500 percent), and Sagip with 774,103 votes (2.1347 percent).

Under the RA 7941 (The PartyList System Act), a partylist which secures at least two percent of the total votes cast is entitled to at least one seat in the HOR.

The partylist group that exceeds the two percent threshold is entitled to an additional seat, provided that it will not exceed the maximum three seats.