MANILA, Philippines—A cloud is hanging over the candidacy of over 4,000 barangay captains seeking reelection for the nth time as the country holds barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK, Youth Council) elections on Monday.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) Sunday announced that it would file disqualification cases against barangay candidates whose names were on the list of “multiple termers” the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) had provided the poll body.
The DILG inventory has identified 4,410 barangay captains nationwide who were found to be on their third or fourth terms but are still seeking reelection.
Under the law governing the synchronized barangay and SK elections, no elected village official can serve for more than three terms.
“Our election officers are now checking the records against the list of candidates in their respective jurisdictions,” Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said at Sunday’s press briefing in Intramuros, Manila.
“And if there are matches, the Comelec law department will right away file disqualification cases against those people,” Jimenez said.
Appropriate criminal charges—perjury and material misrepresentation—shall also be filed against these candidates, he said.
The list provided by the DILG has been distributed to all the election officers nationwide on Saturday for validation.
In a last-minute move, the Comelec Sunday night decided to postpone the elections in Barangays San Isidro and Salumague in Paniqui town in Tarlac province because floods spawned by Supertyphoon “Juan” have not subsided.
It said Election Chair Jose Melo approved the request of municipal officials to defer the elections in the two barangays because most of their residents were still in evacuation centers and the floodwaters would make it impossible for them to go to their polling stations.
The elections on Monday are expected to fill 672,400 elective posts in 42,025 barangays across the country.
Sixteen positions are to be filled in each barangay—eight in the barangay council (one barangay chair and seven council members) and eight in the SK council (one SK chair and seven SK council members.)
More than 50 million Filipinos (18 and above) are eligible to vote in the barangay elections and 2.46 million (15 to 17 years old) in the Sangguniang Kabataan balloting.
Barangays are authorized by law to disburse some P53 billion for local economic development projects and services under the 1991 Local Government Code. Their leaders act as judges in domestic disputes, supervise delivery of basic services and secure neighborhoods.
Unlike in last May’s automated national elections, voting and counting of ballots in Monday’s polls will be done manually.
On the eve of the elections, President Benigno Aquino III called on the people to vote as he assured them that Monday’s polls would be peaceful and orderly.
“This is an important chance for us to strengthen our barangay, the branch of government that first provides service to our people,” he said.
Mr. Aquino is expected to be in his home province of Tarlac on Monday where he will be casting his vote at Central Azucarera Elementary School, his deputy spokesperson Abigail Valte said in a radio interview.
Even if Monday is a national holiday, Mr. Aquino is expected to hold meetings with Cabinet members after he votes in Tarlac, according to Valte.
To effectively deal with “multiple termers,” the Comelec issued Resolution No. 9077, directing all barangay board of canvassers to put on hold any proclamation of winning candidates on the DILG list.
Multiple termers
The resolution also said that a hearing on disqualification cases against the “multiple termers” would be set immediately and be “summary in nature.”
“This means that there will be no more witnesses, no more testimonies,” Jimenez said. “There will only be submission of memoranda or position papers.”
The Comelec is expected to come out with a decision three days after the cases shall have been filed or “within the week,” he added.
To notify voters of “multiple termer” candidates in their respective barangays, an annotation will be provided on the list of candidates attached to either the ballot secrecy folders or tables where they will be filling out their ballots.
“The names of candidates found on the list will be annotated so voters will be aware that there is a cloud hanging over these candidates and if they happen to win, their proclamation will be suspended until such time that they are cleared,” Jimenez told reporters.
Voters should watch out for asterisks beside the names of candidates found to be “multiple termers” to ensure that their votes would not end up as stray votes, he advised.
Should these “multiple termer” candidates win in the elections, the Comelec will suspend the proclamation until they have completed the process of clearing their names.
Interim official
If the suspension of proclamation has not been lifted by Nov. 30, the Comelec will direct the DILG to appoint an ad interim official to take the place of the winning candidate, whose name has not yet been cleared, Jimenez said.
He said that as of 2 p.m. Sunday, the delivery of election paraphernalia to election sites was “close to 100 percent.”
“We are very optimistic that we will have regular elections in the whole country except for those areas affected by the recent typhoon,” he said.
The poll body, nevertheless, has prepared contingency measures should it decide to postpone the elections in some towns.
Voting hours
The measures include deferring the elections to Tuesday or extending election hours in some places. Polling precincts will accommodate voters from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday.
But the elections could be extended according to the number of hours of delay in problematic areas, said Jimenez.
Earlier Sunday, Comelec officials said only the towns of Divilacan, Palanan and Maconaco in Isabela province, which were hit hardest by the typhoon, would hold the elections at a later time.
The Comelec was still studying whether it also would postpone the elections in some towns in Tarlac, Abra, Mountain Province and Batanes.
“These are four other provinces where there are a lot of reports of impassable roads and unusable facilities as some are still being used as evacuation centers,” Jimenez said Sunday afternoon.
“We are monitoring the situation there on a 24-hour basis,” he said. With a report from Christine O. Avendaño.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) Sunday announced that it would file disqualification cases against barangay candidates whose names were on the list of “multiple termers” the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) had provided the poll body.
The DILG inventory has identified 4,410 barangay captains nationwide who were found to be on their third or fourth terms but are still seeking reelection.
Under the law governing the synchronized barangay and SK elections, no elected village official can serve for more than three terms.
“Our election officers are now checking the records against the list of candidates in their respective jurisdictions,” Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said at Sunday’s press briefing in Intramuros, Manila.
“And if there are matches, the Comelec law department will right away file disqualification cases against those people,” Jimenez said.
Appropriate criminal charges—perjury and material misrepresentation—shall also be filed against these candidates, he said.
The list provided by the DILG has been distributed to all the election officers nationwide on Saturday for validation.
In a last-minute move, the Comelec Sunday night decided to postpone the elections in Barangays San Isidro and Salumague in Paniqui town in Tarlac province because floods spawned by Supertyphoon “Juan” have not subsided.
It said Election Chair Jose Melo approved the request of municipal officials to defer the elections in the two barangays because most of their residents were still in evacuation centers and the floodwaters would make it impossible for them to go to their polling stations.
The elections on Monday are expected to fill 672,400 elective posts in 42,025 barangays across the country.
Sixteen positions are to be filled in each barangay—eight in the barangay council (one barangay chair and seven council members) and eight in the SK council (one SK chair and seven SK council members.)
More than 50 million Filipinos (18 and above) are eligible to vote in the barangay elections and 2.46 million (15 to 17 years old) in the Sangguniang Kabataan balloting.
Barangays are authorized by law to disburse some P53 billion for local economic development projects and services under the 1991 Local Government Code. Their leaders act as judges in domestic disputes, supervise delivery of basic services and secure neighborhoods.
Unlike in last May’s automated national elections, voting and counting of ballots in Monday’s polls will be done manually.
On the eve of the elections, President Benigno Aquino III called on the people to vote as he assured them that Monday’s polls would be peaceful and orderly.
“This is an important chance for us to strengthen our barangay, the branch of government that first provides service to our people,” he said.
Mr. Aquino is expected to be in his home province of Tarlac on Monday where he will be casting his vote at Central Azucarera Elementary School, his deputy spokesperson Abigail Valte said in a radio interview.
Even if Monday is a national holiday, Mr. Aquino is expected to hold meetings with Cabinet members after he votes in Tarlac, according to Valte.
To effectively deal with “multiple termers,” the Comelec issued Resolution No. 9077, directing all barangay board of canvassers to put on hold any proclamation of winning candidates on the DILG list.
Multiple termers
The resolution also said that a hearing on disqualification cases against the “multiple termers” would be set immediately and be “summary in nature.”
“This means that there will be no more witnesses, no more testimonies,” Jimenez said. “There will only be submission of memoranda or position papers.”
The Comelec is expected to come out with a decision three days after the cases shall have been filed or “within the week,” he added.
To notify voters of “multiple termer” candidates in their respective barangays, an annotation will be provided on the list of candidates attached to either the ballot secrecy folders or tables where they will be filling out their ballots.
“The names of candidates found on the list will be annotated so voters will be aware that there is a cloud hanging over these candidates and if they happen to win, their proclamation will be suspended until such time that they are cleared,” Jimenez told reporters.
Voters should watch out for asterisks beside the names of candidates found to be “multiple termers” to ensure that their votes would not end up as stray votes, he advised.
Should these “multiple termer” candidates win in the elections, the Comelec will suspend the proclamation until they have completed the process of clearing their names.
Interim official
If the suspension of proclamation has not been lifted by Nov. 30, the Comelec will direct the DILG to appoint an ad interim official to take the place of the winning candidate, whose name has not yet been cleared, Jimenez said.
He said that as of 2 p.m. Sunday, the delivery of election paraphernalia to election sites was “close to 100 percent.”
“We are very optimistic that we will have regular elections in the whole country except for those areas affected by the recent typhoon,” he said.
The poll body, nevertheless, has prepared contingency measures should it decide to postpone the elections in some towns.
Voting hours
The measures include deferring the elections to Tuesday or extending election hours in some places. Polling precincts will accommodate voters from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday.
But the elections could be extended according to the number of hours of delay in problematic areas, said Jimenez.
Earlier Sunday, Comelec officials said only the towns of Divilacan, Palanan and Maconaco in Isabela province, which were hit hardest by the typhoon, would hold the elections at a later time.
The Comelec was still studying whether it also would postpone the elections in some towns in Tarlac, Abra, Mountain Province and Batanes.
“These are four other provinces where there are a lot of reports of impassable roads and unusable facilities as some are still being used as evacuation centers,” Jimenez said Sunday afternoon.
“We are monitoring the situation there on a 24-hour basis,” he said. With a report from Christine O. Avendaño.
