Comelec disqualifies Aangat Tayo from 2013 partylist race due to 'conflicting representation'

Aangat Tayo partylist Rep. Daryl Grace Abayon, photo from www.congress.gov.ph

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InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5

(UPDATED - 12:51 a.m., October 20, 2012) MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Elections has disqualified partylist group Aangat Tayo from joining the 2013 elections. 

Comelec chairman Sixto Brillantes said the poll body had decided to disqualify Aangat Tayo because of its “conflicting representations" of the youth and the elderly. Aangat Tayo’s incumbent representative is Daryl Grace Abayon, wife of former Northern Samar Rep. Harlin Abayon.

"While you can have multi-sectoral, they have to be related, not conflicting…Sabihin mo women at elderly, pwede siguro [It can be women and the elderly]. O kaya  [Or] urban poor at peasants, farmers or fisherfolk. (But) how can you represent the elderly and the youth at the same time?" Brillantes told media on Friday. 

Aangat Tayo was among the groups that poll watchdog Kontra Daya included on its list of allegedly questionable incumbent partylist organizations that should be investigated by the Comelec. 

Kontra Daya said that its initial study "shows the existence of partylist groups formed by political clans, rich and powerful individuals as well as groups that have nominees that are outright disqualified from participating in the partylist system."  

Last August, Kontra Daya asked the poll body to "probe certain groups who do not appear to be representative of actual marginalized sectors or whose nominees do not belong to the sectors they claim to represent."

Kontra Daya claims that Rep. Abayon"does not belong to the marginalized and underrepresented sector that Aangat Tayo seeks to represent, specifically labor, urban poor,elderly, women, youth, and overseas workers." 

According to Kontra Daya, Abayon "belongs to a politically powerful clan." The group said her husband, Harlin Abayon, served as three-term congressman for Northern Samar from 1998 to 2007, governor of Northern Samar from 1988 to 1998, and mayor of San Antonio Northern Samar from 1982 to 1986.

Abayon listed as her net worth for 2011 the amount of P23.443 million. 

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