LENTE urges Comelec to proceed with Oct 13 polls for political party and sectoral seats
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 29 September) — An election monitoring group is calling on the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to proceed with the 1st Bangsamoro Parliamentary Elections on October 13 for political party and sectoral seats as the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by the Supreme Court applies only to the conduct of election for parliamentary district seats and Comelec’s move to suspend preparations was an “illegal overreach.”
“Clearly, the assemblies for sectoral representatives and the elections for regional parliamentary political party representatives on October 13, 2025 can proceed, because there is no law preventing its conduct,” the Legal Network for Truthful Elections (LENTE) said in a September 26 statement which also called on the Supreme Court to resolve the petitions on the redistricting law “with urgency and clarity.”
The Supreme Court en banc on September 15 issued a TRO barring the Comelec and the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) from implementing Bangsamoro Autonomy Act (BAA) 77 or the redistricting law, pending the resolution of the petitions against the law that reallocated the seven parliamentary district seats originally intended for Sulu.
The SC decision was announced on September 16. Less than 24 hours after the announcement, the Comelec, citing the TRO, suspended all preparations for the October 13 polls until the Supreme Court lifts the TRO or resolves the validity of BAA 77.
\In its resolution on September 17, Comelec claimed that BAA 77 which was passed into law on August 19 and signed by the Chief Minister on August 28 — the first day of the 45-day campaign period — repealed BAA 58.
Voters in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) are supposed to troop to the polls on October 13 to elect 80 Members of Parliament – 40 political party representatives, 32 parliamentary districts and eight sectoral representatives.
Before the passage of BAA 77 and the TRO, the Comelec had prepared ballots for the election of 73 MPs: 40 political party representatives, 25 district representatives and eight sectoral representatives.
On September 17, Comelec said the passage of BAA 77 and the Supreme Court’s TRO, left it with no election law to enforce and administer in the BARMM.
On September 25, Comelec chair George Erwin Garcia said their Project Management Office informed them that it is not only “legal impossibility (but also) factually impossible” to hold the elections on October 13 because there is no more time to go around the five provinces of the BARMM to, among others, conduct voters’ education, that they cannot explain to the voters that this candidate you are voting for belongs to another district now.
As of Monday, the SC has not lifted the TRO or resolved the validity of BAA 77.
The first Bangsamoro Parliamentary Elections (BPE) was supposed to have been held on May 9, 2022 but was reset to May 12, 2025, effectively extending the transition period from three years to six years. RA 12123 early this year reset the election to October 13 and October 30 is supposed to be the day the Members of Parliament take over, this time, with the mandate of the people.
The Members of Parliament during the transition period — from February 2019 until now — are all Presidential appointees.
Not “force majeure”
LENTE maintains that the effect of the TRO “is limited to the district boundaries; thus, the blanket suspension of preparations for all elections resulted in an illegal overreach.”
It stressed that Comelec must resume all operations to ensure the conduct of election for regional parliamentary political parties (RPPPs) and assemblies for sectoral representatives while respecting the TRO as to operations related to the election of parliamentary district representatives.”
The election of 48 seats – for political party and sectoral representatives – should proceed on October 13, LENTE Executive Director Ona Caritos told MindaNews on Sunday.
In its statement, LENTE also explained that after a careful review of law and jurisprudence, “we conclude that the TRO cannot be considered a ‘force majeure’ event.”
The Comelec in a resolution on September 25, gave all political parties, sectoral organizations, candidates, election stakeholders and citizens’ arms a non-extendible period of 48 hours from promulgation of Resolution 25-1034 to submit a comment on the force majeure issue, after which the issue of the existence of force majeure in relation to the October 13 polls “shall be resolved by the Commission with or without the submission of comments.”
The resolution cited Section 5 of the Omnibus Election Code which allows the Comelec to postpone the elections “when for any serious cause such as violence, terrorism, loss or destruction of election paraphernalia, or records, force majeure, and other analogous cases of such a nature that the holding of a free, orderly and honest election should become impossible in any political subdivision.”
The Comelec, motu propio or upon a verified petition by any interested party, and after due notice and hearing, where all interested parties are afforded equal opportunity to be heard, “shall postpone the election to a date which should be reasonably close to the date of the election not held, suspended or which resulted to a failure to elect but not later than thirty days after the cessation of the cause for such postponement or suspension of the election or failure to elect.”
The Comelec said the legal issue confronting them now is “whether the issuance of the TRO and the question of what law to apply” for the October 13 polls “may be considered as force majeure.”
LENTE cited the guidelines provided by the Supreme Court in Macalintal vs. Comelec on June 27, 2023 that postponement under Section 5 of the Omnibus Election Code is permitted only for “serious causes such as violence, terrorism, loss or destruction of election paraphernalia or records, force majeure, and other analogous causes” and is restricted to political subdivisions.”
The Supreme Court noted that the term ‘analogous causes’ “shall be restricted to those unforeseen or unexpected events that prevent the holding of the scheduled elections.”
LENTE said the issue of redistricting has always been a “significant governance concern” of the BTA and its relevant ministries so it was “neither unforeseen nor unexpected” and it was also both predictable and understandable that stakeholders will subject it to scrutiny by filing cases in the Supreme Court.
Preparatory difficulties do not qualify as a “serious cause” under Section 5 of the Omnibus Election Code, LENTE said, adding, even reports of flooding in parts of BARMM “cannot justify a region-wide suspension of elections.”
LENTE said proceeding with elections “ensures that the Bangsamoro Parliament can be constituted, preserving the people’s will while the Supreme Court resolves the issues on district seats.”
Elections for both political parties and sectoral groups should proceed as scheduled, LENTE said, “because ultimately, partial implementation is better than a complete postponement.”
LENTE also called on the Supreme Court to resolve the petitions on BAA 77 “with urgency and clarity.”
There are only two weeks left to October 13, from Monday, September 29.
LENTE said the first BARMM polls is “an essential part of the peace process that has spanned decades and required countless sacrifices. It represents the Bangsamoro people’s opportunity to exercise the right to self-determination and autonomy that has long been promised. To delay these elections without compelling and justified grounds risks undermining both democracy and peace in the region.”
Garcia himself had earlier said that the election on October 13 is not just a legal obligation but a “commitment to peace.”
Another election monitoring group — the Independent Election Monitoring Center (IEMC) comprising the Institute for Autonomy and Governance and other groups, issued a statement on September 18, urging the Supreme Court, Comelec and BTA to “immediately resolve the outstanding legal issues” surrounding the BARMM polls “so that elections can proceed on October 13, or at the earliest possible date thereafter.”
The IEMC had expressed support to the Comelec on its decision to suspend all preparations for the October 13 voting, “until the Supreme Court clarifies the implications of its order temporarily enjoining the implementation of BAA 77.”
The IEMC stressed that repeated postponements of the elections in the BARMM “undermine the integrity of the electoral process and erode the public’s trust in elections as a vital means of citizen expression and representation in governance.” (Carolyn O. Arguillas / MindaNews)
No comments:
Post a Comment