Deadline for turncoats

Senator Koko Pimentel. INQUIRER PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

Politicians thinking of switching political parties will have until the end of November this year to join the ruling Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban).

Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III, PDP-Laban president, on Saturday announced that the deadline was to give the party enough time to plan and screen official candidates in the local and national elections in May 2019.

He said the party would screen who among its members would be given certificates of candidacy (COC) from December this year to September 2018, a month before the filing of the COCs in the Commission on Elections.

“I already discussed this with Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez…we thought of having a cutoff for accepting new members in the party because of the scramble of politicians to join the party in the local level,” Pimentel said in a radio interview. —Jocelyn R. Uy