The Commission on Elections in Negros Occidental has been directed to submit a list of those considered as nuisance candidates for possible purging by the COMELEC national office after review.
Provincial Elections Supervisor Jessie Suarez said yesterday that, on the provincial level, he is considering the inclusion of three to four candidates, who filed their Certificates of Candidacy for provincial board and congressional seats, in the list of nuisance candidates that he will submit to their head office.
He has also given the election officers in the towns and cities of Negros Occidental until noon today to submit their lists of nuisance candidates for submission to the COMELEC in Manila, Suarez added.
Suarez said some of the nuisance candidates do not even know how to fill up their CoCs, and do not have the means to mount a campaign.
Section 69 of the Omnibus Election Code states that the “Commission may motu proprio, or upon a verified petition of an interested party, refuse to give due course to or cancel a CoC if it is shown that said certificate has been filed 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.”
“Acts which clearly demonstrate that the candidate has no bona fide intention to run for the office for which the certificate of candidacy has been filed, and thus prevent a faithful determination of the true will of the electorate,” is also grounds for disqualification, Section 69 states.
Suarez said submission of the list of nuisance candidates had not been observed in previous elections.
COMELEC chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. has initiated novel reforms in the Commission that include not only the purging of nuisance candidates, but of bogus partylist groups as well, Suarez said.
Those included in the list of nuisance candidates can go to the COMELEC in Manila during hearings set if they wish to defend their capability to mount credible campaigns, he added.
Meanwhile, he said that while Don Salvador Benedicto mayoral candidate Jose Max Ortiz has not been allowed to register to vote in the town by the DSB Election Registration Board, he has filed a petition for inclusion before the court.
On talk that some bets of may be replaced by new candidates before the December 21 deadline, Gov. Alfredo Marañon J. said there will be no changes in the candidates of the United Negros Alliance for the 2013 polls.*CPG
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