Senior citizens' party-list clueless about status with Comelec

A party-list organization seeking to represent senior citizens said on Tuesday that it was surprised upon learning that it was among the 32 groups that were not accredited by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to join next month's polls. "Wala pa akong natatanggap na official notification tungkol diyan (I have not received any official notification about that)," Alliance and Advocates for Senior Citizens Affairs, Inc. (AASCA) president and first nominee Franco Puzon told GMANews.TV. Earlier in the day, the Comelec released a list of party-list groups whose petitions for accreditation have been denied or whose motions for reconsideration are pending with the poll body or the Supreme Court (SC). (See: 32 unaccredited party-list groups still on ballot) The list showed that AASCA's motion for accreditation was already denied last January 2010. But Puzon said that "as far as they know," they were still accredited as of March, when the Comelec accepted their list of nominees. AASCA's other nominees include Alfredo Ripoll, Quintin Paredes. Reginald Lee, and Milagros Belizario. Puzon, however, said he will leave the matter in the hands of their lawyer. "Nakakalito ang mga nangyayari kaya yung abugado namin ang mag-aayos nito (These developments are confusing, so we’ll let our lawyer settle this)," he said. Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal, for his part, said that their updated records clearly indicate that the group had been denied accreditation. "Kasi the cut-off of the data was April 13. Alam ko, denied yan (The cut-off of the data was April 13. So from what I know, they have been denied)," he told GMANews.TV. Earlier, Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said that the names of the 32 groups will remain on the ballot. However, votes cast for them would be considered as "stray votes" and would not be factored into the computation of the votes for the party-list winners But if the SC decides to accredit them, the poll body would have to go back to the election returns and other election records to recompute the party-list results. —JV, GMANews.TV