MANILA – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) expects petitions to cancel certificates of candidacies (COCs) of 2025 midterm elections candidates to reach thousands.
According to Comelec chairman George Erwin Garcia, his office will receive all the petitions and they will try to resolve it before December, the start of the printing of official ballots.
“As of October 19, the Comelec has already received 43 petitions to deny or cancel COCs,” Garcia said in a media interview. “For sure, the number will increase to thousands.”
Garcia also stated that, based on Comelec’s rules, petitions to cancel of deny COCs must be filed not later than a non-extendible period of 25 days from the time of filing of the COC.
Meanwhile, aside from the COC cancellation petitions, Garcia said that they also received 223 petitions to declare as nuisance candidates, with 117 filed motu proprio against senatorial aspirants, and106 filed against local bets.
“We will resolve all of these before the end of November because no nuisance candidates must be included in the official ballots so as to prevent causing confusion to voters,” Garcia said.
The nuisance candidate cases have already been raffled to the Comelec First and Second Divisions, handling 107 and 113 cases, respectively.
A total of 43,033 aspirants nationwide have filed their COCs and Certificates of Nomination and Acceptance (CONAs) on Oct. 1-8 for 18,280 posts that are up for grabs in the 2025 midterm elections./PN
