A proposed law seeking to disqualify a person who fails to vacate his/her public appointive position before or on the day of filing of Certificate of Candidacy for any elective position now awaits plenary consideration.
The House Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms chaired by Rep. Fredenil H. Castro earlier approved and recommended plenary passage of HB 1976, principally authored by Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus B. Rodriguez and Abante Mindanao Party-list Rep. Maximo Rodriguez Jr.
House bill 1076 seeks to amend the existing law on electoral reforms.
“There is need to clarify and strengthen the intention of the law when it provided that appointive public officials were to be deemed resigned upon the filing of their Certificate of Candidacy as to prevent these officials from utilizing vast government resources for their political operation,” the authors said.
HB 1976, one of the more than two dozen bills in the “Business for the Day” list of the House plenary consideration before the current adjournment of Congress in early February.
A key provision of the amendatory bill states that any appointive official who fails to vacate the office of the day of filing the Certificate of Candidacy shall be automatically disqualified as candidate for the elective position and shall not be eligible to assume the functions of the elective office.
As a backgrounder to their electoral reform initiative, Rodriguez cited Batas Pambansa Bilang 881, otherwise known as the Omnibus Election Code, which provides that persons holding an appointive office or position are automatically resigned on the date of filing of the Certificate of Candidacy.
“Subsequent election laws, R.A. 8436 (Automated Elections Act) and R.A. 9006 (Fair Elections Act), were both silent on the said rule (provided for under BP 881), thereby making BP 881 still the applicable law insofar as the deemed resigned provisions for appointive office is concerned,” he added.
Rodriguez recalled the enactment of R.A. 9369, which amended R.A. 9436, but still retained the deemed resigned provision for appointive officials. However, he added that since R.A. 9369 adjusted the deadline for the filing of the Certificate of Candidacy to an earlier date, confusions arose on the interpretation as to the exact time of the deemed resignation, whether at the time of the filing of the Certificate of Candidacy or during the start of the campaign period.
“There is need to clarify the law on appointive officials as they file their Certificate of Candidacy,” the authors said, stressing that “we should continue with the long honored rule that appointive public officials shall be considered resigned upon filing of their Certificate of Candidacy for public elective positions.”
He also noted a marked distinction between appointive public officials from elective public officials. “Unlike their elective counterparts who have fixed term as willed by the electorate, appointive officials are either co-terminus with their appointing authority or career officials who are prohibited from electioneering and partisan activities,” he added.
“Appointive officials can also utilize vast government resources for their political operations if not considered resigned when they file their certificates of candidacy,” Rodriguez pointed out.
The authors said that the same bill was originally introduced during the 15th Congress. It was approved by the House of Representatives and transmitted to the Senate where it failed to see the light of day.