POLITICIANS URGED TO FILE COC EARLY

Lawyer Ferdinand Gujilde of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday urged politicians to file their certificates of candidacy as early as Oct. 11, 2018 and not wait for the deadline on Oct. 17 so they will still have time to correct any errors in their documents. “The filing of certificates of candidacy is only five days, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; no noon break but without extension. On Oct. 17, a candidate can still be accommodated even at past 5 p.m. if he is inside the Comelec office at 4:45 p.m.,” Gujilde said. On the other hand, Gujilde said the Election Registration Board (ERB) will conduct a hearing on Oct. 25 to approve or disapprove all registrations filed in the last three months. “In this hearing, we can see the total number of registered voters in the country in general and in Cebu in particular. But we expect that Cebu will reach the three million mark in the May 13, 2019 elections,” Gujilde said. He said that before the last registration, which ended last Sept. 29, Cebu had 2.8 million voters. There are 200,000 new registrants for the Province of Cebu, including Cebu City and Lapu-Lapu City. “Cebu is the vote-richest province, so we expect senatorial hopefuls to come over,” Gujilde said. He said the registration of those who registered with the Sangguniang Kabataan and who will turn 18 on election day will be automatically transferred to the regular list of voters.