Kabayan, Tulungan In; API, Aksyon, Abono Out

 

Pangasinenses Lead Partylists

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza, MPA

DAGUPAN CITY – Among the five Pangasinenses lead partylist, only the province’s homegrowns Kabayan and Tulungan win the latest survey of the Social Weather Station (SWS) for the partylists’ election on May 12.

FIRST NOMINEES of Pangasinenses lead partylists: (From top left and clockwise) Kabayan Partylist Cong. Atty. Ron Salo, Pangasinan's mediaman Cisco Flores, Abono Cong. Robert Raymond Estrella, Aksyon Dapat nominee Hernani Braganza, and API nominee Amado Espino, Jr.

Based on the March 15 to 20, 2025, Kabayan and Tulungan Tayo entered the winning Top 57 partylist seats for the 63 congressmen from the partylist needed to fulfill the constitutional mandates that twenty percent (20%) of the 313 members of the the House of Representatives should be allocated to partylists. Fifty-seven (57) partylists should have won incase election was held on that period and not 63 because 4Ps, Duterte Youth, Duterte Youth, and FPJ Panday Bayanihan got additional six seats based on the 4.17% to 10.44% respondents that voted for them as seen on the table of the pollster.

A party that got 6% or more of the total votes cast for the present 156 party lists that joined for the May 12, 2025 election gets three seats while those that got 4% and 2% of the total votes get two seats and one seat, respectively.

In the survey, Kabayan got 0.68% (ranked 43) while Tulungan Tayo 0.59 (ranked 48).   API (Abante Pangasinan Ilocano), Aksyon Dapat, and Abono poorly chalked up 0.30% (ranked 73-74), 0.25% (ranked 83-87), 0.12% (ranked 111), respectively.

There are 156 partylists that vie for the May 12, 2025 national and local elections.

Kabayan Partylist represents marginalized sectors of the Filipino community, including the disabled, senior citizens, overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), fishermen, farmers, and the poor.

Kabayan was founded by Ron Salo – a resident of Binmaley, Pangasinan -- in 2009. Salo is the present congressman of Kabayan in the 19^th Congress and he is the first nominee in the May 12, 2025 election.

Tulungan Tayo Party List’s first nominee is Cisco Jay Flores, a media practitioner from Dagupan City. He vowed to introduce bills designed to empower peasants, women, and youth. Its second nominee is JB Acosta of Calasiao, Pangasinan. Acosta’s wife is Pangasinan chain of malls heiress Dagupan City Councilor Irene Lim.

      The first nominee of Abante Pangasinan Ilocano (API) is the former Governor of the Province of Pangasinan Amado T. Espino, Jr. while its second nominee is Laoac Vice-Mayor Atty. Nelson Valdez Gayo. In the May 9, 2022 election, API made raves and waves as it got 449, 346 (1.24%) votes while its rival Abono settled for 287, 460 (0.80%). API then was basking on the popularity of the former Governor and his son and namesake who was the governor of the gargantuan province. But after the latter lost to Pangasinan Governor Ramon V. Guico III, API lost its glitter under its congressman Mike Morden and even plunged to the cellar among the 156 partylists that shoved and jostled to be a member of the 20^th Congress. 

 

The first nominee for this year’s election of Aksyon Dapat Partylist is former Alaminos City, Pangasinan Mayor Hernani Braganza. He said – as culled from online data -- that his group initial plan was to create a peace advocacy organization, but his group’s diverse and inclusive platform paved the way for them to run under the party-list system.
Braganza – a former Press Secretary and Congressman -- stated that part of their advocacy was to increase the capacities of public hospitals in the country and also look into reducing the out-of-pocket expenses through the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation.

Abono Partylist represents the agriculture and marginalized sector especially the population of Pangasinan province. Its first nominee is Congressman Robert Raymund Estrella – a resident of Rosales, Pangasinan -- while its chair and treasurer is Eng. Rosendo O. So.

In the elections of 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2022, Abono got 1 seat, 2 seats, 2 seats, 2 seats, 1 seat, and 1 seat, respectively.

 

                     GNAWED BY FPJ PANDAY BAYANIHAN AND SOLID NORTH

       This writer sees that one of the culprits that gnawed the votes of these five Pangasinan folks lead partylists are the presence of FPJ Panday Bayanihan being led by Senator Grace Poe whose first nominee is her son and Solidarity of Northern Luzon People (Solid North) run by the political family of Bernos of Abra.

FPJ (ranked 4 with 4.17% respondents) is based in Manila while Solid North (ranked 41-42 with 0.695 respondents) was just sued at the Commission on Election lately against its first nominee and a school division superintendent in Abra for alleged vote-buying and bribery.

These two partylists have been aggressively campaigning in Pangasinan to win its huge more than two million voters (a column/blog on this to follow – MCO).

According to Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia, the complaint against Solid North Party-list first nominee Menchie Beronilla Bernos and Schools Division Superintendent of the Department of Education (DepEd) – Abra Amador Garcia was filed last March 7.

SWS explained that the survey was done through face-to-face interviews with 1,800 registered voters: 300 in Metro Manila, 900 in the rest of Luzon, 300 in the Visayas, and 300 in Mindanao.

It added that the poll had a margin of error of ±2.31 percent for national percentages, ±3.27 percent for percentages in Luzon except Metro Manila, and ±5.66 percent for percentages in Metro Manila, the Visayas and Mindanao.