MANILA - The proclamation of Kabataan party-list and Gabriela will proceed despite their pending cases, a Commission on Elections official said Thursday.

Comelec commissioner George Garcia backpedaled after earlier saying that the poll body would not proclaim party-lists with pending cases.

• Comelec says won't proclaim party-lists with pending cases; Gabriela, Kabataan cry foul

"We have precedence and in our precedent we had been following, even if you had pending cases, if based on our determination the case is not that meritorious or even if meritorious, we can still proceed with the proclamation of these party-lists. It is based on our discretion," he said.

"In this case we exercise our discretion in (which) we will proceed to proclaim these party-list organizations."

The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict's (NTF-ELCAC) had asked for the cancellation of the 2 groups' registration before the Comelec for being linked to the communist movement.

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Aside from precedence, the Comelec proclaims candidates even with pending disqualification cases as "it's already the mandate of the people" and in the event the cases were not meritorious, Garcia said.

"Ang dami po kasi dyan nagpa-file talaga not necessarily in these circumstances, may pina-file-an para lang i-derail ang proclamation ng isang candidate," he said.

(Some petitioners file cases not necessarily in these circumstances, they just file to derail the proclamation of a candidate.)

In case of internal party-list dispute, the Comelec will proclaim the winning party but not its nominees, Garcia added.

The proclamation of party-list groups is set on 4 p.m. Thursday at the Philippine International Convention Center.

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