156 party-list groups to be included in ballot

MANILA, Philippines — A total of 156 party-list groups have been approved for inclusion in the official ballot for the midterm elections next year, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) announced yesterday.

An electronic raffle to determine the order of listing in the ballot of the party-list organizations was held yesterday at the Comelec office in Intramuros, Manila. Printing of official ballots is set in December.

The 4PS (Pagtibayin at Palaguin ang Pangkabuhayang Pilipino) took the number one spot among party-lists in the official ballot, followed by the PPP (Puwersa ng Pilipinong Pandagat), FPJ Panday Bayanihan, Kabataan and Duterte Youth.

The next five spots went to ML (Mamamayang Liberal), PBBM (Pilipinas Babangon Muli), P3PWD (Komunidad ng Pamilya, Pasyente at Persons with Disabilities), Murang Kuryente and Bicol Saro. The final spot (number 156) went to Uswag Ilonggo.

The Comelec named the 156 groups eligible for inclusion in the electronic raffle through Resolution No. 11074 issued on Oct. 11.

A total of 190 groups filed their certificates of nomination and acceptance from Oct. 1 to 8.

The poll body earlier said a total of 160 party-lists had initially been qualified to participate in the 2025 midterm elections. Of the number, 118 are existing party-list groups and 42 are newly registered.

Four of the qualified groups, however, did not file their CONAs, effectively removing them from official list.

In an interview, Comelec chairman George Garcia said several of the party-list groups have already avoided using letter “A” in the beginning of their names.

“They know that in the end, the basis to be used in the order of the names in the ballot is not through alphabetical arrangement but the numbers (they will be assigned),” Garcia said.

“If you saw a party-list with a name starting with letter ‘A,’ these are already existing organizations that before, used that strategy to become number one in the list,” he said.

As to party-list groups that failed to send representatives during the raffle, Garcia said, “There will be no problem… Whatever was the number assigned to them, we will give it to them. There is no sanction or punishment for them even if they were