A senior official from the National Security Council (NSC) on Wednesday urged the Bayan Muna party-list group to stop holding the government responsible for its loss in the May 12 midterm elections.
“Bayan Muna has no one (to) blame for its electoral defeat in the past (two) party-list elections but itself,” NSC Assistant Director General Jonathan Malaya said in a message to reporters.
Malaya asserted that instead of pointing fingers at the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), Bayan Muna should engage in self-reflection to understand its declining public support.
“The votes that they got clearly shows that there is no support for the abolition of NTF-ELCAC,” Malaya said.
“What is clear is that the usual sloganeering or propaganda no longer works and that the public no longer supports the ideology, issues, and political positions that they stand for,” he added.
Bayan Muna had earlier claimed it was subjected to continuous attacks by the state, particularly by the NTF-ELCAC during the campaign period, alleging vilification and red-tagging as contributing factors to its loss.
The left-leaning political organization and member of the Makabayan bloc received only 160,439 votes or 0.39% of the votes, ranking 76th overall, based on the partial and unofficial results of the 2025 national and local elections as of Thursday morning, May 15, 2025.
Bayan Muna is currently at risk of being delisted by the Commission on Elections (Comelec), losing its bid to participate in the 2028 general elections after failing to win at least one seat in the last two elections—2022 and 2025.