Disqualified poll bets should also file SOCE — Comelec

Even disqualified candidates should file their Statement of Contributions and Expenditures (SOCE) if they still want to run for public office again.

Commission on Elections (Comelec) spokesman James Jimenez on Tuesday reminded all those who filed their certificates of candidacy for the 2018 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections to file their SOCEs on or before June 13.

“Winners, losers, or even disqualified candidates must file their SOCEs,” Jimenez told reporters. “As long as you filed your certificate of candidacy, you must file your SOCE.”

“When they file (a certificate of candidacy), it would be part of their political history that at one point, they ran (for public office) and they did not follow rules,” the Comelec official explained.

Jimenez said candidates must use the Comelec form, which is downloadable from the poll body’s website, and it must be personally signed.

Earlier, the Comelec warned that candidates for the village and youth polls who fail to submit their SOCEs before the deadline risk being “perpetually disqualified to hold public office.”

READ: Candidates told: Win or lose, file your Soce

Section 14 of Republic Act 7166 states that the winning candidates who fail to file their SOCEs would be prohibited from holding public office until he or she complies with the requirement.

“Further, the commission of a second or subsequent failure to file the SOCE subjects the offender to perpetual disqualification to hold public office,” it said. /ee