Comelec to screen CoCs to weed out nuisance bets

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) vowed to stringently screen all certificates of candidacy (CoCs) submitted by aspirants for national positions in the 2025 midterm elections. Comelec spokesman John Rex Laudiangco said the Supreme Court lessened the criteria for removing nuisance candidates from the official list of candidates. "Based on two recent decisions of the Supreme Court, it said a candidate could not be declared a nuisance just because of the lack of financial capacity to launch a nationwide campaign. The Supreme Court has removed the financial aspect of the campaign for a candidate to be declared a nuisance. In the second decision, it was also decided that one cannot be automatically declared a nuisance candidate just because he or she is unpopular or has no political party," Laudiangco said in an interview. At the same time, he noted that they still have a basis for screening candidates. "We will look into the actuations of filing a CoC. Do they understand the positions they are running for? For instance, one filed a candidacy for senator but is actually saying functions that are not that of a senator. Second, we will look into whether they just want to sow chaos in the polls or just want to steal votes from a legitimate candidate," Laudiangco said. The poll body, he said, is relying on petitions for disqualification filed before them against bets, as they cannot moto proprio file a petition for disqualification. Laudiangco also said the Comelec is open to an early implementation of the election gun ban, based on the recommendation of the Philippine National Police, as it is within the purview of the poll body.