COMELEC SAYS Pending graft cases, narcolist tag won’t disqualify aspirants
Pending graft cases and being included in President Duterte’s narcolist cannot be considered as grounds to disqualify a candidate for any elective office, an official of the Commision on Elections (Comelec) said on Thursday.
Lawyer Lionel Marco Castillano, Cebu Provincial Election Supervisor, said the Comelec cannot heed the recommendation of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) to disqualify aspirants who are part of the narcolist or for having pending cases for graft before the court.
In an ABS-CBN news.com report, DILG officer-in-charge (OIC) Eduardo Año said that they would propose for the Comelec to disqualify right away aspirants who are on the narcolist.
“It’s up to the Comelec, pero titingnan natin ang severity ng kanilang involvement. Ang danger kasi diyan kung talagang involved sa drugs at ginagamit nila ang drug money para manalo at bumili ng boto,” Año was quoted in the news report.
Año also recommended that politicians who have pending graft cases should also be barred from running for any elective office because “the country is losing an estimate of P70 billion a year to corruption in the local level.”
Violation of due process
But Castillano reiterated the grounds for the disqualification of candidates is provided by law and does not include the inclusion in any erring list.
“The Comelec will only implement what is in the law. Deciding if one is qualified for a position is no longer the discretion of the election officer,” said Castillano.
He added that disqualifying candidates solely on the basis of being part of the narco list is a violation of due process since the rule of law perceives an accused as innocent until proven guilty.
“In filing the Certificate of Candidacy, as long as the person is able to submit all the requirements, then the election officer has no choice but to accept it. The duty of the election officer is ministerial,” Castillano said.
Castillano said that if a person believes that a candidate is not qualified to run, a disqualification complaint should be lodged at the Comelec office which will be decided by the Comelec en banc.
The schedule of the filing of COCs for the 2019 midterm elections will be on October 11 to 17.
Rama still hoping
In Cebu City, former Mayor Michael Rama who is running for vice mayor in next year’s polls, is among those tagged in the president’s narcolist.
Rama is still hoping that his name will be cleared by Duterte.
Meanwhile, a total of 86,605 new voters have registered all throughout Cebu Province.
The registration of new voters, as well as the correction of the entries in the voter’s information, closed last September 29.
The voting population of Cebu has now climbed to at least 3 million from 2.7 million in 2017. /with Correspondent Delta Dyrecka Letigio
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