THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) will release next week the guidelines for the filing of certificates of candidacy (CoCs) for the 2025 national and local polls, which will be made public for the first time for the sake of transparency.
Candidates can file their CoCs between October 1 and October 7, excluding October 6, a Sunday. September 30, on the other hand, is the last day for voter registration.
Aspirants for national positions such as senator and party-list representative can file their CoCs in a tent at the Manila Hotel, Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia said.
Commission on Election (Comelec) Chairman George Erwin Garcia. PHOTOS BY MIKE ALQUINTO
Local candidates (governor, vice-governor, congressman, mayor,vice-mayor and council members) can file their CoCs in their respective provinces, cities and municipalities.
A total of 18,271 elective posts are up for grabs in the May 2025 polls, which include the 32 member parliamentary seats and 40 party-list representative seats in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM)
To be filled up are 12 Senate seats, 254 seats for congressional district representatives and 63 seats for party-list representatives.
On the provincial level are 82 seats for governor, 82 seats for vice governor and 792 seats for provincial board members.
For the cities, there are 149 seats for mayor, 149 for vice mayor and 1,682 for councilor.
At the municipal level, the available positions are 1,493 seats for mayor, 1,493 seats for vice mayor, and 11,948 seats for councilor.
Garcia said that for the first time in election history, the Comelec would make public the CoC of all candidates who will run in 2025 for added transparency, to ensure that only qualified candidates can run for public office, and to prevent a repeat of what happened in Bamban, Tarlac, during the 2022 elections wherein a Chinese national won the mayoralty post.
“Because of our experience in Bamban, Tarlac, and in the absence of a law that would give the Comelec the authority or discretion to ask candidates to submit additional documents, the Comelec deemed it necessary to publish in its website all the CoCs of all candidates running for any position so that the public will know and see who these candidates are and if they are really qualified,” he added.
“This is the first time that we will do it,” he said but pointed out that the information that will be published by the Comelec would be limited only to what is required by the Omnibus Election Code and in accordance with the Data Privacy Act.
For example, a candidate’s civil status, the name of his or her spouse, and e-mail address will not be published.
Garcia said he was confident that the publication of the CoC of candidates would be an effective deterrent against misrepresentation, perjury or lying under oath and other election offenses.
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