POLL watchdog Kontra Daya yesterday slammed the bid of the ruling PDP-Laban party to reopen of the period of filing certificates of candidacy (COCs) for the May 2022 elections.
Kontra Daya convener Danilo Arao said the COC filing period closed three months ago.
“It is a mockery of election rules because it ignores the set deadlines and offers no compelling reason for extension,” he said.
He said the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to immediately junk the petition filed by PDP-Laban asking the poll body to reopen the COC filing and to delay the printing of official ballots because of numerous pending legal proceedings involving individual candidates and party-list organizations.
“Elections should not be treated as a joke,” Arao said.
In a 20-page petition, the PDP-Laban wing of Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi asked the Comelec last Friday to reopen the COC filing period, which was on Oct. 1 to 8, 2021.
“With all due respect to this Honorable Commission, the 1 to 8 October 2021 deadline for filing COCs is unreasonable, unnecessary, and, worse, legally impossible,” said PDP-Laban.
“Petitioner respectfully prays that this Honorable Commission (to) reopen or otherwise extend the period for political parties and candidates to file their COCs, previously scheduled from 1 to 8 October 2021; (and) as a legal and logical consequence of the immediately preceding prayer, admit COCs to be filed by political parties and candidates within the new or extended period,” it furthered.
The party said the Omnibus Election Code of the Philippines would have permitted the filing of COCs until February 7 for candidates for nationally elected positions and March 24 for candidates for locally elected positions.
Under the law, a COC should be filed on any day from the commencement of the election period but not later than the day before the beginning of the campaign period.
“Had legislation prior to the passage of Republic Act No. 9369 been applied to the upcoming 2022 national and local elections, the period of filing of COCs would have been 9 January 2022, at the earliest, and 7 February and 24 March 2022, for candidates for national and local positions, respectively, at the latest,” it said.
PDP-Laban said that even if the Poll Automation Law is considered, the COC filing should not have been as early as October 2021.
Under RA 9369, the Comelec has the authority to “set a deadline” for the filing of COCs, without specifically providing any operative date as reckoning points.
“Despite the silence of the law on dates when the deadline should be reckoned, (Commission) should have been carried out by striking a balance between the logistical requirements of an automated election, on the one hand, and the need to afford all political parties and candidates sufficient opportunity to present to the Philippine electorate the candidates for the upcoming 2022 national and local elections,” said PDP-Laban.
