'Guanzon coveting party-list slot'

NATIONAL Youth Commission (NYC) Undersecretary Ronald Cardema has claimed that former Commission on Elections (Comelec) commissioner Rowena Guanzon had asked the five nominees of the P3PWD party-list to resign by declaring incapacity so that she could become its first nominee.

He asked Guanzon to follow her own promulgations in the Comelec on the rules and timeline of substitution as party-list representative.

Cardema said Guanzon was misrepresenting herself as a nominee of the P3PWD party-list during the campaign season for the elections and that she was hindering the approved nominees of the party-list from getting their seats in Congress.

During the Pandesal Forum at the Kamuning Bakery Cafe on Friday, Cardema noted that Guanzon was behind the P3PWD being a no-show during the party-list proclamation as she had removed the nominees from the Viber party-list account.

He said a nominee of the P3PWD party-list personally reached out to him after the proclamation to help them resolve the issue with Guanzon because they were afraid of her and of personally confronting her.

"Ma-assume mo na may pumipigil talaga...I think pinipigilan sila (nominees), tulungan natin sila na nanalo sila, mauupo sila (One can assume that someone is stopping them from attending the proclamation, I think someone is preventing the nominees. Let us help them, they won that seat and they deserve to have it)," Cardema added.

In 2019, Cardema was disqualified from being seated as representative of the Duty to Energize the Republic through the Enlightenment of the Youth Sectoral Party-list Organization (Duterte Youth Party-list) because he was overaged in representing the youth sector.

His wife, Ducielle Marie Cardema, is now the sitting representative of the party-list.

The NYC undersecretary admitted during the forum that stopping Guanzon from becoming a congresswoman was a personal matter for him after she attacked him and his wife when Guanzon was still a Comelec official.

He noted that the former Comelec official's tirades caused his wife to bleed when she was pregnant with their first child.

Cardema said he and his wife faced Guanzon as a commissioner during hearings she set up, and he had to accompany his pregnant wife to the Comelec and then to the hospital afterward to stop the bleeding.

"Paanong hindi ko sasabihing personal 'to, talagang tinarantado kami ni Guanzon noong nakaupo siya sa Comelec. Ngayon, bumaliktad ang mundo (How can I say this was not a personal matter when Guanzon made a fool of us when she was still with the Comelec. Now, the circumstances have flipped)," he added.

Cardema pointed out that the former commissioner will have a difficult time telling the Comelec her intent to file for substitution as party-list representative after she opposed Comelec commissioners right before she stepped down from office.

"Ito ang masasabi ko ngayon kay former commissioner Guanzon, talagang asa ka pa maging kongresista ka, ang tawag d'yan Ma'am, karma (Here's what I have to say for former commissioner Guanzon, you can just hope that you can be a congresswoman, that is what is called karma, Ma'am)," he said.

Cardema also claimed that the former commissioner will only use her power, if she becomes successful in securing the congressional seat, to become an opposition leader against President-elect Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., and with that would not be able to sufficiently serve the PWD sector she was supposed to represent.

He challenged Guanzon to a debate, saying he hopes that she would be able to bring the five nominees of the P3PWD party-list to disprove his claim.

Source: TheManila Times