Comelec to discuss the final list of candidates on Monday

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MANILA – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is set to deliberate on Monday on the final list of national candidates in the May 2016 elections.

With this, Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista said the commission en banc will also discuss the pending disqualification cases of Senator Grace Poe and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and if they will include them in the official ballot.

“On December 14, we will again meet at 10 am… We will continue to discuss it,” he said.

The poll body said that they are looking to release the official list of candidates on Dec. 15.

The lady lawmaker has filed a motion for reconsideration before the Comelec en banc after both the First and Second Divisions cancelled her Certificate of Candidacy (CoC) for president in next year’s polls.

On the other hand, Duterte has a pending case before the First Division regarding the petition to disqualify him filed by Ruben Castor.

The hearing is set on Dec. 16.

Meanwhile, the poll body chief is not discounting the possibility of releasing only a provisional final list of candidates on Tuesday.

“Ang pwedeng mangyari is that we will already input whatever names that are already final, tapos meron na lang pahabol… pinaga-aralan natin ang mga iyan,” Bautista said.

He added that they might extend their self-imposed deadline for them to come up with the names of candidates to be printed on the ballots.

“Yan ay tinitingnan din natin. Because, remember, the printing of the ballots will happen sometime in January,” Bautista said.