(UPDATE) THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) has heeded the recommendation of its Law Division to declare 117 senatorial aspirants as nuisance candidates. This is more than half the 183 aspirants who filed their certificates of candidacy for the position.
Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia said that while the motu propio petition had been granted, the aspirants could still file a motion for reconsideration before the Comelec en banc or seek a restraining order from the Supreme Court.
Six of the 117 aspirants have already filed a motion for reconsideration, which the Comelec en banc will decide next week, Garcia said.
Meanwhile, nuisance petitions against 300 local candidates are still being deliberated and will be decided by the end of November.
Garcia said he was hopeful that everything would be settled before the Comelec started printing the official ballots, which was why they decided the cases early, so the affected aspirants could get due process by going all the way to the Supreme Court.
In deciding who would be considered nuisance candidates, the Comelec took into account the Supreme Court ruling on Marquez v. Comelec, which states that unpopularity and non-membership in a political party are not sufficient grounds to declare one a nuisance candidate.
But the poll chief also pointed out that there was no hard and fast rule that if one were a member of a political party, he or she would no longer be deemed a nuisance, saying that there were candidates who were able to secure a certificate of nomination (CON) from a political party to avoid being declared a nuisance.
The Omnibus Election Code (OEC) defines a nuisance candidate as one who files a certificate of candidacy (COC) to put the election process in mockery or disrepute or to cause confusion among the voters by the similarity of the names of the registered candidates; or which clearly demonstrates that the candidate has no bona fide intention to run for the office and to prevent a faithful determination of the true will of the electorate.
