Duterte to formally file COC at Comelec Tuesday

DAVAO City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte will personally file his certificate of candidacy at the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Tuesday to formalize his presidential bid in 2016, Senator “Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel said Monday.

Duterte will be accompanied by his running mate, Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, at the Comelec.

“Mayor Duterte will personally appear before the Comelec to undergo through the process of personal filing just to make sure, kasi nag filing sya thru an agent, through a representative so kung ano man yung mga papeles na kailangan ng pirma nya, he will sign in front of the Comelec officer,” Pimentel, president of PDP-Laban, told reporters.

“Kung ano man yung kailangan under oath, he will now swear to that document right before the Comelec officer so wala nang kabutas butas kasi parang ano na po ito, parang redundancy na po ang tawag dyan,” he added.

Pimentel said Duterte’s bid was bolstered by the decision of the Comelec’s Second Division to dismiss a petition to declare Martin Diño, the party’s former standard-bear, as “nuisance candidate.”

READ: Comelec junks petition to tag Martin Dino as nuisance candidate

With the Comelec’s decision, the senator said Duterte’s substitution for Diño would now be “100 percent smooth, valid and legal.

“You can only now attack the COC (certificate of candidacy) of Mayor Duterte . Do not use anybody else’s COC to attack his candidacy. I’ve advised the mayor to make his COC perfect so I don’t anticipate any problems anymore,” said Pimentel.

Told about a pending disqualification case against Duterte, the senator pointed out that the case was only based on Diño’s COC.

“That DQ is based on another person’s COC which is sabi ko nga mali. You attack the COC of the candidate, not the COC of somebody else so with this latest Comelec decision that they find nothing wrong with the candidacy of Martin Diño, even yung ground na ginamit dun sa pending DQ case, wala na,” he said.

“The sub is n now 100 percent smooth, 100 percent valid, 100 percent legal so we’re going to prepare to fight,” Pimentel added.