COMELEC Iloilo City to implement ’30-meter rule’ on last day of filing

By Joseph B.A. Marzan

Anticipating a flood of last-minute candidate filings, the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) in Iloilo City said Wednesday that candidates must be around its office by 5 p.m. on Oct. 8, 2021, so that they can beat the deadline.

Filing of certificates of candidacy (COC) with COMELEC-Iloilo City at the Iloilo Terminal Market has been slow, with only 21 candidates having lodged their candidacies as of Oct. 6.

COMELEC Iloilo City Election Assistant II Jonathan Sayno told Daily Guardian that they will not extend the filing period.

But if other candidates file their COCs on the proverbial 11th hour, the poll office will require potential candidates to be within 30 meters of their office by 4:45 pm Friday.

COMELEC will only accept the COCs of those who were listed in the logbook by 5 pm.

“At 4:45 p.m., in the event that there would be many candidates filing, our procedure would be that they need to be within a 30-meter radius from the door of the COMELEC receiving area. We will record their names in the logbook, and by 5 p.m. we will close the listing. Whoever will be listed in the logbook, those are the only ones whose COCs we will accept,” Sayno said.

Those expected to file on Oct. 8 include former Iloilo City Mayor Jose Espinosa III (for lone district representative) and former city councilors Plaridel Nava and Joshua Alim (for city council).

 

NUISANCE CANDIDATES

Sayno also explained the processes in naming a candidate as a nuisance bet.

Rule 24, Part V of the COMELEC Rules of Procedure provides for the poll body’s determination of nuisance candidates.

Sec. 1 of the Rule defines a nuisance candidate as one who “filed his certificate of candidacy to put the election process in mockery or disrepute or to cause confusion among the voters by the similarity of the names of the registered candidates or who by other acts or circumstances is clearly demonstrated to have no bona fide intention to run for the office for which the certificate of candidacy has been filed, thus preventing a faithful determination of the true will of the electorate”.

Citing Sec. 2 of the Rule, Sayno said that only a candidate may file a complaint to declare his fellow candidate for the same position as a nuisance bet.

Despite the rule, no candidate has ever filed such complaint in Iloilo City.

“The COMELEC’s procedure there to declare a candidate as nuisance is that his opponent in the same position should be the one to file. It hasn’t happened here, that’s why there are many candidates here in Iloilo City,” he said.