Marcoleta to join 19th Congress as SAGIP party-list 2nd nominee

Although he withdrew from the 2022 senatorial race, Atty. Rodante Marcoleta will still get a seat in the 19th Congress after the Commission on Elections (Comelec) granted his substitution as the second nominee of Social Amelioration and Genuine Intervention on Poverty (SAGIP) Party-list.

Acting Comelec spokesperson Rex Laudiangco said in a press statement that the Comelec en banc granted the withdrawal of the original second to fifth nominees of SAGIP party-list.

Laudiangco added that the en banc also noted the party-list's new nominees while retaining their first nominee - Caroline Tanchay.

On May 25, the Comelec en banc granted the nominations of Marcoleta as second nominee, Jocelyn Bituin as third nominee, Ruth Bajas as fourth nominee, and Alvino Cruz as fifth nominee.

Since the Comelec, sitting as the National Board of Canvassers, proclaimed the SAGIP party-list winning two seats in the House of Representatives, Tanchay and Marcoleta will sit as their representatives in Congress.

According to Laudiangco, no election law or rule prohibited candidates who dropped their bid before the election from assuming a different post.

Laudiangco has yet to point to a previous instances in which a candidate who withdrew before the election assumed a different elective position.

Barely two weeks before the May 9 polls, Marcoleta announced that he would drop out of the Senate race, citing poor performance in the pre-election surveys.

Marcoleta made the decision even though his bid was backed by outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte and then-election frontrunners Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte. — DVM, GMA News