WATCH: No Certificate of Proclamation for Duterte Youth for now

MANILA, Philippines— Commission on Elections Commissioner Rowena Guanzon on Wednesday said the poll body will not yet issue a Certificate of Proclamation to Duterte-Party-list yet.

Guanzon explained that the Comelec en banc decided to hold off on issuing the certificate since there are still questions around the substitution plea of its proposed nominee, former National Youth Commission Chairman Ronald Cardema.

Early June, the poll body resolved to give due course to the nomination of the following new nominees of Duterte-Youth as substitutes:

• Ronald Gian Carlo Cardema

• Gian Carlo Galang

• Catherine Santos

• Kerwin Pagaran

• Sharah Shane Makabali

The commission also denied due course to the nomination as a substitute 6th nominee of Allan Kevin Payawal since the party-list originally named only five nominees.

Duterte Youth filed a notice of withdrawal of its nominees at 5:30 p.m. on May 12, a day before the 2019 midterm polls.

Cardema’s petition for substitution had been questioned because of when it was filed and because he is 34 years old. He has said that party-lists that represent the "youth and professionals" sector do not have an age limit.

Duterte Youth nonetheless positioned itself during the election campaign as a party-list for the youth sector. It counted Kabataan party-list, which represents the youth sector, as its rival. 

Under Section 18 of Comelec Resolution No. 3307-A:

A party-list nominee may be substituted only when he dies, or his nomination is withdrawn by the party, or he becomes incapacitated to continue as such, or he withdraws his acceptance to the nomination...

No substitution shall be allowed

Meanwhile, Section 9 of the Party-list System Act stated that a nominee of the youth sector must not be more than 30 years old.

The Comelec released the Certificates of Proclamation for a first batch of 39 party-lists.