THE initial list of candidates that the Commission on Elections will be releasing on Wednesday will likely be close to the final roster of bets to be included in the ballots for the May 2016 national and local polls, the poll body said Sunday.
“What we want by Dec. 23, when we come out with the list, although it will not yet be final, we want it to be close to the final list of candidates,” Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista said.
The list would still be subject to change until Jan. 8, he added.
The poll body earlier postponed the release of the official list of candidates from Dec. 15 to Dec. 23 due to pending disqualification cases filed against some of the candidates.
Among these were presidential aspirants Senator Grace Poe and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, who are leading in the opinion polls.
Four petitions have been filed against Poe, charging that she is not a natural-born Filipino citizen and that she lacks the required residency to run for president.
Comelec’s First and Second Divisions have already ruled to disqualify her, but Poe filed two motions for reconsideration before the commission en banc.
Duterte is facing a disqualification case before the Comelec First Division due to questions on the validity of Martin Diño’s CoC, which would determine the fate of Duterte’s substitution bid.
The Comelec wants to print the official ballots by the third week of January.
Earlier, a former Comelec commissioner said the poll body might run out of time to print ballots for next year’s election if they will wait for the cases against Poe and Duterte to be resolved.
“They are running out of time,” said former commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal.
“The chairman said the final list of candidates will be on December 23, but [Poe and Duterte] were given 10 days, or until Dec. 28, to submit their memorandums,” Larrazabal said.
“It’s going to be tight, unless they have a decision within the week after [Dec. 28]. It can still be done, but it’s going to be very tight,” Larrazabal said.
Larrazabal said the Comelec needs enough time to configure the ballot and present it to the public before they print the official ballot.
“You have to submit it to the public for them to check if it is correct. So you give them a week, then it goes back to you then you get it, so from Jan. 8 to Jan. 26. It’s about 18 days, that’s really tight,” he said.
The former poll commissioner also advised the Comelec to start sacrificing their weekends and holidays to prepare for the elections on May 9, 2016.
“What is important is they can make adjustments if they cannot meet the timeline. You just have to adjust and compensate because we are running out of time,” Larrazabal said.