The Supreme Court (SC) was asked to nullify the May 18, 2025 resolution of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), sitting as the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC), that allocated only 63 congressional seats, instead of 64 slots, for party-list representatives in the May 12 mid-term elections.

In a petition filed on Monday, May 26, the One Filipinos Worldwide (OFW) party-list group also challenged before the SC the continued participation of non-marginalized groups in the party-list system that “circumvents the Constitution and results in the mockery and disrepute of the electoral process.”

The OFW, a group of Filipinos working abroad, said that under Section 5 (2) of Article VI of the 1987 Constitution and Republic Act No. 7941, the Party-list System Law, only those belonging to marginalized and under-represented sectors were allowed to participate to be members of the House of Representatives.

It lamented that many party-list organizations which were accredited and eventually proclaimed as winners in the past elections were not from the marginalized sectors.

“Quite the contrary, the organizations and its representatives were from political dynasties, provinces or geographical areas with more than sufficient representation, big business interests, and sometimes even from known religious sectors, only under cover organizations,” it said.

Thus, it said that despite the huge economic contribution of OFWs, they do not have “real and truthful voice” in Congress.

“The Party-List system is a social justice designed not only to give more in law to the great masses of our people who have less in life, but also enable them to become veritable law makers themselves, empowered to participate directly in the enactment of laws designed to benefit them,” it pointed out.  

“Thus, allowing all individuals and groups, including those which now dominate district elections, to have the same opportunity to participate in party-list elections would desecrate this lofty objective and mongrelize the social justice mechanism into an atrocious veneer for traditional politics,” it stressed in its petition.  

In pleading for the issuance of a temporary restraining order (TRO) and the granting of its petition, the OFW told the SC that the Comelec gravely abused its discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction and violated the equal protection clause of the 1987 Constitution in promulgating the assailed resolution.

It also pleaded the SC to revisit or modify or abandon the formula adopted in the decided case of BANAT vs. Comelec which states that the parties shall be ranked from highest to lowest based on the number of votes they received during elections; the parties receiving at least two percent of the total votes cast shall be entitled to one guaranteed seat each; those garnering sufficient number of votes, according to the ranking shall be entitled to additional seats in proportion to their total number of votes until all the additional seats are allocated; and each party shall be entitled to not more than three seats.

The BANAT vs Comelec case was decided by the SC as a full court on April 21, 2009. It is the petition filed by the Barangay Association for National Advancement and Transparency (BANAT) vs. Commission on Elections (sitting as the National Board of Canvassers) with the Arts Business and Science Professionals, Aangat Tayo, and Coalition of Associations of Senior Citizens in the Philippines, Inc. as intervenors.

The formula, the OFW said, resulted in double counting of votes in favor of party-list groups which attained two percent of the total votes cast by all party-list groups.

It pointed out that there is no provision in RA 7941 that allows such vote allocation.

It also said: “The votes already used to allocate a seat through the guaranteed seat, were unreasonably used to allocate for the additional seat. This is a clear instance of double counting of votes and this is also a violation not only of the equal protection clause, but also the principle of ‘one person, one vote’ which is a bedrock of the republican and democratic nature of the Philippine State.”  

Thus, it said the “NBOC Resolution 14-25 violates the equal protection clause of the 1987 Constitution as it gives undue preference to Party-List organizations who garnered two percent or more of the total votes cast for the Party-List System by allowing these party-list organizations to be credited the same votes for the distribution of the guaranteed seats and distribution of the additional seats.”

At the same time, the OFW asked the SC to proclaim the group as among the winning party-list candidates in the May 12 national and local elections.

If the BANAT formula is scrapped, the OFW’s rank will be at 59 and will entitle it to a seat in the House of Representatives, it added.