An election watchdog flagged Wednesday more than half of the 156 party-list groups accredited by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC), claiming they are “hijacking” the midterm polls, with 40 party-lists having nominees linked to political dynasties.

Kontra Daya’s study found the proportion of party-list groups with ties to political dynasties rose from 24.86% in 2022 to 25.64% in 2025, despite a decrease in the total number of accredited party-lists from 177 to 156.

The election watchdog flagged Tingog party-list for fielding two Romualdez clan members among its 10 nominees in the upcoming midterm polls — first nominee Andrew Julian Romualdez and sixth nominee Yedda Marie Romualdez. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and House Speaker Martin Romualdez are members of this clan.

The group also called out ACT-CIS party-list for being dominated by the Tulfo and Yap families, including first nominee Edvic Go Yap, second nominee Jocelyn Pua Tulfo, fourth nominee Ma. Ganda Austria Yap, eighth nominee Merelene Pua Que and ninth nominee Lucrecia Pua Co.

If elected in its current standing in the surveys, ACT-CIS would retain its three seats in Congress and the Tulfo clan would hold positions in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Other party-lists linked to political dynasties are 4PS of the Abalos clan and FPJ Panday Bayanihan of the Poe-Llamanzares with Dolor and Paton families.

These party-lists were among the top eight in the January voter preference for party-lists survey of Social Weather Stations.

Kontra Daya’s study also found 25 party-list groups have nominees from big businesses, 18 with police or military connections, seven with corruption cases, 11 with “dubious advocacies” and nine with lacking information.

Kontra Daya convenor and University of the Philippines (UP) journalism professor Danilo Arao called for reforms in the country’s party-list system, saying the 2013 Supreme Court (SC) ruling allowing individuals of non-marginalized backgrounds to run for Congress should be challenged.

“There are already pending bills seeking to reform the party-list law. However, these are gathering dust in Congress right now because what do you expect from political dynasties, big businesses and other beneficiaries of the current system?” Arao said. “Why would they change it and not serve their interests anymore?”

The SC ruling states that national and regional parties or organizations “do not need to organize along sectoral lines and do not need to represent any ‘marginalized and underrepresented’ sector.”

“It is possible for the marginalized and underrepresented to win in the party-list, but they remain marginalized,” Arao added.

Natalie Pulvinar, executive secretary of the public policy group Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG), also urged COMELEC to “have stricter scrutiny measures on which party-lists to accredit.”

Kontra Daya, joined by CenPEG and citizen-led election monitoring initiative VoteReportPH, presented its study Wednesday at a press conference at the UP Diliman College of Media and Communication Auditorium following the start of the national election campaign.