359 Central Luzon poll bets face disqualification

CAMP OLIVAS, Pampanga – Three hundred fifty nine barangay and Sangguninag Kabataan (SK) election candidates in Central Luzon are facing disqualification.

Commission on Elections (Comelec) Regional Director Temie Lambino announced in a media conference here that most of the candidates sought SK seats and may be disqualified due to age issues.

“357 SK candidates are subject to disqualification. These include 288 who are overage or more than 24 years old, 14 who are underage or less than 18 years old and 55 who are not registered voters,'' according to Lambino.

“For the candidates who are included here and who happened to have garnered the highest votes, they are not proclaimed by Comelec. If they are proclaimed, they cannot assume their positions come July 1,” Lambino emphasized.

Lambino said Nueva Ecija had the most number of overaged SK candidates (154), followed by Bulacan (49), Pampanga (29), Bataan (20), Zambales (16), Tarlac (14) and Aurora (6).

Nueva Ecija has also the most number of underaged SK candidates with eight while Pampanga, Tarlac and Zambales have two each.

The same province has the most number of candidates who are not registered voters with 37, followed by Zambales (12), Tarlac (5), and Aurora (1).

Comelec said that the other two candidates are bets for the barangay elections but are now subject to disqualification because they turned out to be unregistered voters.