Comelec: Over 1.1M COCs filed for 2018 barangay, SK polls

More than 1.1 million certificates of candidacy (COCs) have been filed for the 2018 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) announced on Monday.

The Comelec said the data was culled from 1,625 cities and municipalities after it officially closed the filing of COCs at 5:00 p.m. last Saturday, April 21.

Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said that 722,081 aspirants filed their COCs in a bid to clinch a position in the barangay — 87,127 for barangay chairman and 634,954 for barangay kagawad.

Likewise, there were 418,906 youths who filed their COCs to seek post in the SK — 83,127 for SK chairman and 335,779 for SK kagawad, the Comelec official said.

In total, 1,140,987 COCs were filed nationwide for the May 2018 barangay and SK election.

According to the Comelec, a total of 671,168 seats were up for a vote in the barangay and SK election this year, with 335,584 seats each for barangay and SK councils.

Jimenez, however, explained that the figures only reflect the number of COCs filed, and not the number of official candidates who would be allowed to run in the election.

The Comelec has yet to screen all the COCs and should finish doing so before the start of the campaign period on May 4.                  /kga