The Lakas leadership, and not the different factions in the Lakas party, should have the final say on who should be nominated to the Commission on Appointments (CA), Lakas spokesman Raul Lambino said Tuesday.

Lambino said that the Constitution provides for proportional representation from the political parties in the House of Representatives in choosing who should constitute the House contingent in the CA and the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET).

Lambino said that based on the Lakas party's computation of proportional representation, the party should have four seats in the CA and Lakas party leaders should decide among themselves who should be nominated to these seats to represent Lakas in the CA.

The House contingent in the CA is composed of 12 members who shall be "elected on the basis of proportional representation from the political parties and parties or organizations registered under the party-list system represented," according to the rules of the CA.

"That's what the spirit of the Constitution and court jurisprudence provide for — that the House contingent should reflect the representation of the political parties in the House of Representatives," Lambino said.

Though the Lakas party had suffered massive defections to the ruling Liberal Party and many of its members have joined the majority coalition of Speaker Feliciano Belmonte, it still has the biggest membership in the Lower House with about 80 members.

Leaders of the Liberal Party have come up with statements that they have already discussed with the various factions in Lakas for the representative of each faction in the CA, but many Lakas loyalists have urged to follow the Constitution's provisions on proportional representation from the political parties in choosing the members of the CA.

Elena Bautista-Horn, spokeswoman of Pampanga Rep. and Lakas chairwoman Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, said that the process of nominating the Lakas members in the CA will not discriminate whether a member has joined the majority coalition or remained with the minority in the Lower House.