Congress should propose restrictions on candidate substitution rule, according to a COMELEC spokesperson.
COMELEC — A spokesperson from the Commission on Elections said that Congress should propose restrictions on candidate substitution rule instead of removing it.
COMELEC Spokesperson James Jimenez encouraged Congress to propose restrictions instead of removing the candidate substitution rule from the Omnibus Election Law.
Jimenez said in a tweet on Wednesday that the voluntary substitution option for candidates shouldn’t be removed despite calls from some lawmakers.
“What needs to happen is that Congress should introduce restrictions of some sort, on the exercise of the statutory privilege of substitution,” Jimenez said.
Article IX Section 77 of the Omnibus Election Code provided that if an official candidate of a registered or accredited political party “dies, withdraws, or is disqualified for any cause” after the last day for the filing of certificates of candidacy, only a person belonging to, and certified by, the same political party may file a COC in order to replace the official candidate who died, withdrew, or was disqualified.
Although the COMELEC spokesperson acknowledged that the provision was being used as a “strategy”, Jimenez said that he still believed in its importance.
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Two House bills have been filed at the House of Representatives seeking to ban candidate substitution and to declare an incumbent elective official as resigned upon filing his or her COC for a government post.
Cagayan de Oro City Representative and Deputy Speaker Rufus Rodriguez said that the proposed measures he authored aimed to end the practices of some political aspirants and political parties that tend to “doubt the integrity of the elections”.
HB 10380 proposed that a political party should be banned from substituting any political candidate unless the latter died or was disqualified, while HB 10381 aimed to restore the old provision in the election law that declared an incumbent as “resigned ipso facto (by that very fact or act)” upon filing his or her COC for another position.
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