THERE won’t be any midnight filing of candidacies for next year’s elections, said the Cebu City office of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) last Thursday.
Cebu City north district election officer Marchel Sarno said a new resolution from their central office fixed the schedule of the filing of certificates during office hours from 8 a.m to 5 p.m.
“This is done to give us ample time to submit a report. If it’s done at 12 midnight tomorrow is registration. It would be hard for us to facilitate registration if we’re tired from last night’s work, right?,” Sarno said.
He said October will be a busy month for them since they would finish the filing of certificates of candidacies (COCs) and finalize the registration of voters before the Oct. 30 deadline.
Comelec Cebu City south district officer Edwin Cadungog said senior citizen registrants went up this year after they learned about the cash aid offer by City Hall to elderly voters.
“They can only avail of the benefits if they are registered voters,” Cadungog said.
He said 279,836 Cebuanos have registered of whom 3,539 were transferees while 14,086 were new applicants as of last month.
The registered voters exceeded last year’s numbers of 267,432 as of October that year.
About 233,835 registrants were recorded last June of whom 5,043 were new applicants while 3,078 were transferees.
This also surpassed the 209,907 registrants recorded in the 2010 elections. Cadungog said all filing of COCs from October 1-5 will fall under his office.
He also clarified that appointed government officials need to leave their posts on the first day of their filing of COCs.
Elected officials are not required by law to resign, Cadungog said.
“That’s the gray area of the law. We have a very distinctive thin line between public service and one’s political interest,” he said.
For candidates working in media or under a private company, it will be the management’s prerogative on whether or not they will be asked to resign. Correspondent Sean Timothy Salvador