Duterte Youth chairman Ronald Cardema on Tuesday filed a petition before the Supreme Court (SC) seeking to stop the Commission on Elections (Comelec) from suspending the group’s proclamation as one of the winning party-list organizations in the 12 May national and local elections.
Cardema told reporters he filed a petition for certiorari with a prayer for the issuance of a temporary restraining order (TRO) to halt the implementation of the Comelec resolution — sitting as the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC) — that suspended Duterte Youth’s proclamation alongside other party-lists.
Comelec earlier cited “serious allegations” raised against Duterte Youth and Bagong Henerasyon as grounds for the suspension, which delayed what was supposed to be their formal proclamation on Monday.
Duterte Youth ranked second in the party-list race with 2,338,564 votes, earning them three seats in the 20th Congress.
Cardema’s camp argued that NBOC Resolution No. 14-25, dated 18 May 2025, is unconstitutional and violates Section 7, Article VI of the 1987 Constitution, which mandates that winning party-list nominees are entitled to serve a three-year term.
He also claimed the Comelec was trying to revive a 2019 case against Duterte Youth involving allegations of vote buying and failure to file registration as a party-list — issues which, he said, were already raised and dismissed by the Supreme Court due to lack of basis.
Cardema attached a copy of the 2019 SC ruling to his petition, arguing that the issue had already been resolved.
“Why would they bring this up only now, now that we are on top and we got three seats.. Why would they suddenly say that those cases are very various?" Cardema asked.
He further accused the Comelec of grave abuse of discretion for announcing the suspension of Duterte Youth’s proclamation just four hours before the scheduled ceremony.
“We believe there was grave abuse of discretion by the Comelec yesterday (Monday). We were only informed that we were not included in the proclamation at noon, just before the proclamation itself,” Cardema said, adding that the late notice prevented them from taking legal action in time.
“If the poll body had informed us last week, we could have done something about it. It seems intentional,” he said.