‘DUTERTE YOUTH’ SLAMS COMELEC, CALLS ON CHAIR TO RESIGN

THE ‘Duterte Youth’ Party List (Duty to Energize the Republic through the Enlightenment of the Youth) slammed the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) for withholding its proclamation as a winner in the May 12, 2025 midterm polls due to pending poll protests filed by partylist groups identified with the Communist Party of the Philippines.

Duterte Youth prime mover and former National Youth Commission chair, Ronald Cardema also called on COMELEC chair, George Erwin Garcia, to emulate Civil Service Commission (CSC) chair, Atty. Marilyn Barua-Yap, by also submitting his courtesy resignation following the call of President Marcos Jr. last May 22.

The Chief Executive ordered all his Cabinet officials, advisers and heads of other agencies to tender their courtesy resignation in the aftermath of the disastrous result for the administration of the midterm elections.

In justifying his order, the President said acknowledges the polls’ result as the public’s judgement of the first half of his term. “The people have spoken, and they expect results— not politics, not excuses,” he said.

As a constitutional office, the COMELEC, like the CSC, is not covered by the instruction but still, Barua-Yap decided to heed the presidential instruction, Cardema noted.

He also averred the President was addressing his remark to Garcia when he said that the people are tired of “politicking officials.”

“Sa panawagan po ni PBBM kahapon (May 22) na lahat kayo magresign dahil sa pamumulitika, kayo lang po ang kaisa-isang todo press release ng pagtanggi at excuses kung bakit hindi (kayo) puwede magresign.

“Una dahil Constitutional Commission kayo sabi ninyo, eh, etong kasamahan ninyong Constitutional Commission Chairman rin (Barua-Yap), nagsumite na ng resignation, wala kayong tiwala kay PBBM dahil kayo talaga ang tinutukoy na namumulitika,” Cardema said.

Cardema issued the challenge after it filed a court ‘petition for certiorari’ before the Supreme Court accusing the COMELEC of abuse of discretion.

Aside from Duterte Youth, the COMELEC also withheld the proclamation of ‘Bagong Henerasyon’ (BH) Partylist but had already junked the petition against it as of this writing.

Protest earlier dismissed by SC, Comelec

At a press conference last March 27, Cardema already bared that the disqualification cases now being used by the COMELEC filed by the Kabataaan Party List to withhold the Duterte Youth’s proclamation are similar to those junked by the Supreme Court as far back as five years ago, in 2020.

In that press conference, Cardema said they would sue Kabataan officers for libel and perjury (Pinoy Exposé, April 1, 2025).

Cardema however claimed he received information that ‘influential officials’ are ‘pressuring’ the COMELEC to deny the Duterte Youth of its seats in Congress in order to “accommodate” CPP-linked partylists, whose performance was the worst to date in the history of the country’s partylist election, with only Kabataan expected to gain a single seat.

PL election results wholly unfavorable to administration, allies

Both the overseas and local absentee voting results proved unfavorable to the administration and its allies in the local communist movement.

In both the overseas and local absentee voting, the Duterte Youth was the preferred partylist by the voters. Overseas voting covers overseas Filipinos while local absentee voting covers members of the military, the police and the media.

In the Asia Pacific region, Duterte Youth garnered 19,372 votes (23.92 percent) compared to its two nearest rivals, OFW (6.35 percent; 5,142 votes) and Akbayan (6.19 percent; 5,013 votes).

For the local absentee voting, the Duterte Youth also emerged as the top choice among the country’s law enforcement personnel. The final count showed it has garnered 2,388,5564 votes.

It is the only partylist, along with the AKBAYAN PL, which emerged in the top spot at 2,779,621 votes, entitled to 3 full seats in Congress.

On the other hand, only the Kabataan PL managed to win a seat from the more than a dozen CPP-linked partylist groups that participated in the midterm polls and which are now allied with the Marcos administration.

Cardema believes that unseating Duterte Youth would pave the way for 3 more seats being made available to the tailenders consisting of other CPP-linked partylist groups in order to boost their presence in Congress.