Winning village, youth council bets facing disqualification won’t hold office –Comelec
WINNING candidates in the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections with pending petitions for disqualification or cancellation of certificate of candidacy (COC) filed against them won’t be allowed to hold office, according to the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
Comelec spokesman James Jimenez on Thursday said that among the most common grounds for disqualification were overage in the case of SK candidates and the violation of the three-term rule.
Pursuant to Section 3(d) of Comelec Resolution No. 10196, a Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) candidate must be “at least eighteen (18) years but not more than twenty-four (24) years of age on the day of the elections” which, Jimenez said, has been upheld by the Supreme Court.
“In implementing the age requirement, the Comelec looked to the landmark case of Garvida vs. Sales, Jr., where the Supreme Court ruled that one year is equal to no more than one 365-day cycle. Therefore, 24 years does not mean 24 years and one or some days or a fraction of a year since that would be more than 24 365-day cycles,” Jimenez said.
Section 40(b) of the Local Government Code of 1991 (LGC) likewise disqualifies from running for elective positions those who have been removed from office as a result of an administrative case.
Local elected officials who have been elected and have served three consecutive terms are not allowed to serve for a fourth consecutive term in the same position. This three-term limit is stated in Section 8, Article X of the Constitution, and is further reiterated in Section 43(b) of the LGC.
Winning candidates who overspent during the campaign period may also be removed from office even after they have assumed office.
There are a total of 1,070,991 candidates who vied for 671,168 positions for both the barangay and SK elections in the recently concluded May 14, 2018 elections. WILLIAM B. DEPASUPIL
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