Less than an hour ago, 1-UTAK filed an urgent Petition asking the COMELEC to issue a certificate of proclamation “attesting that Homero A. Mercado” is the duly designated nominee of 1-UTAK who will sit in Congress.”
The petition specifies that 1-UTAK’s Executive Committee has passed a resolution withdrawing the nomination of Angelo T. Reyes as it’s first nominee; and that Reyes has been informed of this “decision to withdraw nomination and has agreed to the filing of the same.”
Apparently, the 2nd nominee declined the honor to represent 1-UTAK in Congress, which brought up the third nominee – Homero A. Mercado.
RA 7941 provides:
Section 8. Nomination of Party-List Representatives. Each registered party, organization or coalition shall submit to the COMELEC not later than forty-five (45) days before the election a list of names, not less than five (5), from which party-list representatives shall be chosen in case it obtains the required number of votes.
A person may be nominated in one (1) list only. Only persons who have given their consent in writing may be named in the list. The list shall not include any candidate for any elective office or a person who has lost his bid for an elective office in the immediately preceding election. No change of names or alteration of the order of nominees shall be allowed after the same shall have been submitted to the COMELEC except in cases where the nominee dies, or withdraws in writing his nomination, becomes incapacitated in which case the name of the substitute nominee shall be placed last in the list. Incumbent sectoral representatives in the House of Representatives who are nominated in the party-list system shall not be considered resigned.
This is getting interesting.
UPDATE:
As it turns out, Secretary Reyes is now saying that he isn’t withdrawing his nomination.