The projected plebiscite for the people’s initiative to amend the 1987 Constitution is “unlikely” to happen in July, Commission on Elections chairman George Garcia said.
He said the poll body has yet to receive enough signatures from towns and cities for the plebiscite to be held.
“Based on our monitoring, we have 253 districts. And it seems that none of the 253 districts have the signatures submitted to our local Comelec yet. It should be from all the districts in the Philippines,” Garcia said.
He said the June or July target of the plebiscite’s proponents is too tight.
“They’re jumping the gun on the Commission on Elections too much because we still have to verify the signatures later,” Garcia added.
Earlier in the day, Albay Rep. Joey Salceda said supporters of the people’s initiative are aiming to have the plebiscite by July.
“As far as it was explained to me by the proponents, they want to hit it before July and hold a July plebiscite,” he said.
For the people’s initiative, the signatures of 3 percent of the registered voters per congressional district and 12 percent nationwide are needed.
“I think most of the country, I think by next week, we must have already achieved the 12 percent. It was a question only of physically submitting it to the local Comelec,” Salceda said.
Comelec spokesman John Rex Laudiangco said voter registration for the 2025 national and local elections may be temporarily halted to give way to the verification of the signatures supporting the people’s initiative.
The resumption of the voter registration is scheduled to start on Feb. 12 until Sept. 30, 2024, with Comelec expecting an additional 3 million voters to register ahead of the polls.
He said the poll body continues to receive signature pages for the people’s initiative.
“[But] we only have one election officer for every municipality and cities. Should this event prosper—the petition—we would need to verify thousands of signatures and probably halt the voter registration,” Laudiangco said in a radio interview.
Garcia said Comelec has since received signature pages from over 720 municipalities and cities.
“Once the signature pages have been received, election officers are required to count the signatures and then issue a certification on the number of signatures,” he said.
“And if the petition is filed, it is only then that the Comelec will check if the signatures have reached the twin requirements for a people’s initiative,” Garcia said.
If the sufficiency requirement is met, the Comelec can then proceed to the verification of the signatures.
Salceda, however, clarified the signature campaign was not a “gift” in time for the State of the Nation Address of President Marcos in July.
“That was not the point,” he said.
“The point is that it has to be reasonably actionable, that there is enough time before the 2025 elections,” Salceda added.