Poll Chair George Erwin Garcia during briefing after the first day of filing for the 2025 midterm polls at the Manila Hotel Tent City in Manila. INQUIRER PHOTO / RICHARD A. REYES
Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chair George Erwin Garcia on Friday said that only 66 of the 183 individuals who filed certificates of candidacy (COCs) for senator are likely to be included in the official list of candidates for next year’s midterm polls.
Garcia said a team at the Comelec law department has done an initial screening of the COCs and found out that at least 66 senatorial aspirants were “legitimate.”
“They (team) already determined 66 legitimate candidates who can be considered valid candidates and have their names included in the ballot,” Garcia told reporters in an interview in Makati City on the sidelines of the walk-through at a data center where the local source review of the election technologies would be conducted.
The other 117, he said, have varying “issues” regarding their nominations, including certificates of nomination and acceptance signed by different party officials, indicating a leadership dispute, and some political parties fielding, or “over-nominating” more than 12 senatorial candidates.
Also included in the 117 are potential “nuisance” candidates, which the Comelec may weed out motu proprio (on its own), or by a petition of another candidate running for the same position, which must be filed by Monday next week.
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The elections chief said Comelec lawyers are expected to submit by Wednesday next week its recommendations on who should be included or excluded from the final list.
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He also said the Comelec clerk of court has also received at least five petitions seeking to deny due course or cancel COCs filed by incumbent local officials who have been perpetually disqualified from holding public office.
Meanwhile, the Comelec chief said the Miru Systems Joint Venture delivered on Friday an additional 7,488 automated counting machines, bringing the total number of delivered units to 63,480, or 57.39 percent of the 110,620 units that the poll body will be leasing for next year’s elections.
The technologies for the automated counting, the electronic canvassing, consolidation and transmission of votes and the internet voting for overseas absentee voters were the subjects of a two-month local source review that poll body started in Makati.
Garcia said the review is the “most important” step in the automated election process as information technology experts will try to figure out if the technologies are secure and to detect vulnerabilities. The results will be used later in obtaining international certification for the technologies.
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