Over 400 candidates face disqualification

INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The proclamation of winning candidates who failed to register as voters will be suspended, Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. said on Tuesday.

“When our law department checked, we found out that a lot (of the candidates) are not registered voters,” Brillantes told Radyo Inquirer 990AM.

He said around 90 candidates for village chief and over 300 for village councilor were on the list of candidates who failed to register as voters.

“If they get the highest vote (in the village polls), we will suspend their proclamation and confirm if they are indeed not registered voters,” Brillantes said.

The Comelec chairman emphasized that only registered voters are qualified to run for public office.

“If they are not registered, we cannot proclaim them. A person who is not qualified may not win (in the elections),” he said. Likewise, a person who is not qualified cannot be considered a candidate, he added.

Once disqualified, the candidate with the next highest number of votes will be proclaimed.

Brillantes admitted that the Comelec had failed to weed out those who were not registered voters because of the short amount of time between the filing of the certificates of candidacy, which ended October 17, and the Election Day on Monday.

He assured the public that the Comelec would be able to decide on the individual cases before the new term starts on November 30.

More than 800,000 candidates ran for the 300,000 or so positions in all villages across the country.

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