The Philippine election body Comelec has not disqualified political party Bayan Muna from the archipelago’s May 12, 2025 elections, contrary to rumours that spread online the weekend before the vote. The purported ruling and press announcement in the false posts are fabricated.
“The COMELEC has disqualified the BAYAN MUNA Party-list from participating in the 2025 midterm elections,” reads a Facebook post shared May 10.
It featured screenshots of Comelec’s supposed ruling on a disqualification case filed by a petitioner named Angela O. Aguilar against Bayan Muna which is seeking a seat in Congress in the upcoming mid-term vote (archived link).
The resolution — apparently docketed “SPA No. 24-059” — says the party-list group was disqualified for having links to a communist rebel group (archived link).
Another Facebook post purports to show a Comelec press announcement quoting its spokesman John Rex Laudiangco as saying: “Votes cast for the BAYAN MUNA PARTYLIST will be considered null and void.”
Screenshots claiming to show news reports announcing Bayan Muna’s disqualification also surfaced but were dismissed by The Philippine Star, Inquirer,ABS-CBN News and Rappler (archived here, here, here and here).
“The Commission En Banc has not released a resolution disqualifying the Bayan Muna Party-list during this elections,” Comelec said in a post on its official Facebook page on May 10 (archived link).
“They are still officially included in the list of candidates for party-list groups for the election on Monday (May 12, 2025).”
The circulating resolution and press announcement are bogus.
A search through Comelec’s notices on special action cases found “SPA No. 24-059” refers to an unrelated petition involving Jose Bunilla who was declared a “nuisance candidate” by the election body (archived link).
Read the full story on AFP Fact Check.