Fanfare ushers in election season

MANILA, Philippines—Politicians troop to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) Monday to register as candidates in next year’s midterm elections, the first under the Aquino administration.

Also Monday, President Benigno Aquino III will introduce to the public his senatorial candidates at Club Filipino, the same place where his mother, President Corazon Aquino, took her oath of office at the height of the Edsa People Power Revolution in February 1986.

The minimally opposition group United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), led by Vice President Jejomar Binay, former President Joseph Estrada and Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, will launch its senatorial ticket at Manila Hotel, a favorite hangout of the political class since American colonial times.

Although the campaign does not officially start until February, Monday marks the start of the political season.

The Comelec is prepared to see the usual pomp and pageantry that comes with the filing of certificates of candidacy (COCs), but it has a message for the aspirants for national and local offices.

“We appeal to the candidates to dispense with all the fanfare. Let us make the filing of COCs as dignified as it should be,” Comelec Chair Sixto Brillantes Jr. said Sunday.

Starting Monday and up to Oct. 5, Comelec offices across the country will accept COCs of politicians running for 18,053 national and local offices.

The Comelec said it would not extend the last day of the filing of COCs to midnight, stressing that aspirants for public offices should set an example to the people they wish to lead by being punctual.

At stake in the midterm elections are 12 seats in the Senate; 233 seats in the House of Representatives; 80 gubernatorial and 80 vice gubernatorial offices; 766 provincial board seats; 143 city mayoral and 143 city vice mayoral offices; 1,598 city council seats; 1,491 municipal mayoral and 1,491 municipal vice mayoral offices, and 11,932 town council seats.

Only candidates running in the senatorial and party-list races should file their COCs at the Comelec main office in Intramuros, Manila. All other candidates must file their COCs in Comelec offices in their respective provinces or cities.

PNP ready

The chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), Director General Nicanor Bartolome, said on Sunday that police officers would secure all Comelec offices and their vicinities to make the five-day registration of candidates would be peaceful.

The Comelec is expecting just that, ideal if without marching bands, balloons and circus clowns.

Commissioner Rene Sarmiento said the period for the filing of COCs usually brought a “fiesta atmosphere” to the Comelec office.

“We are not expecting any ruckus to happen but usually the filing of COCs is colorful… there are marching bands as if in a fiesta,” he said in a phone interview.

So far, the Comelec has received no reports of threats in traditionally known “areas of violence” and “hot spots,” such as Abra, Nueva Ecija, Masbate and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), he said.

The only hitches could come from the politicians themselves, Sarmiento said. “They might submit incomplete documents.” With reports from Michael Lim Ubac and Marlon Ramos

Originally posted: 8:12 pm | Sunday, September 30th, 2012