CITY OF SAN FERNANDO -- Reelectionists, newbies and other aspirants for various national and local posts will start trooping on October 1 up to October 8 to officially file their respective certificates of candidacy (COCs).
Candidates may file their COCs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Commission on Elections (Comelec)-selected venues across the country amid the raging coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.
Comelec chairperson Sheriff Abas, in a statement, said that a total of 18,180 elective positions in the national, local and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) are at stake in next year's elections
The following elective seats are one seat for president, one seat for vice president, 12 senators and 63 seats for party-list representatives.
Local posts include 253 district representatives, 81 governors, 81 vice governors, 782 provincial board members, 146 city mayors, 146 city vice mayors, 1,650 city councilors, 1,488 municipal mayors, 1,488 municipal vice mayors and 11,908 municipal councilors.
Meanwhile, 40 party representatives, 32 parliamentary district representatives and eight reserved and sectoral representative positions are available for the BARMM polls.
Minimum health protocols
Abas said that Comelec personnel in the field were directed to look for big spaces in the province or municipalities where to hold the filing process.
“We have an order to our personnel to find suitable and big areas within the municipality or province. They were also given an order to meet the minimum health protocol, especially social distancing,” he added.
Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez, for his part, said venues for the filing period were chosen for the security of candidates and to prevent crowding.
“This is to provide better security for our filers and prevent crowds from forming outside the filing area. One of the main things of the filing of COCs this year is that we really went to a great extent to make sure that the filing would be sober,” he said. (JTD)