{"id":188729,"date":"2018-11-08T00:34:49","date_gmt":"2018-11-08T05:34:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=188729"},"modified":"2018-11-08T00:34:49","modified_gmt":"2018-11-08T05:34:49","slug":"nothing-wrong-prrd-endorsing-aguilar-macalintal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/11\/08\/nothing-wrong-prrd-endorsing-aguilar-macalintal\/","title":{"rendered":"Nothing wrong with PRRD endorsing Aguilar: Macalintal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: President Rodrigo Roa Duterte raises the hand of singer Freddie Aguilar on the sidelines of the Para\u00f1aque Integrated Terminal Exchange (PITX) inauguration in Para\u00f1aque City on November 5, 2018. ROBINSON NI\u00d1AL JR.\/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— An election lawyer said Wednesday there is nothing wrong with President Rodrigo Duterte’s gesture in raising the hand of senatorial aspirant and singer Freddie Aguilar.<\/p>\n

In a statement, lawyer Romulo Macalintal noted that the recording artist is not yet considered a candidate for the May 2019 mid-term polls since the campaign period has not yet begun.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, in an automated election, where the certificate of candidacy (COC) of candidates have to be filed early to enable Comelec (Commission on Elections) to print the names of the candidates on the ballots, those who filed their COCs are not yet treated as \u2018candidate\u2019 for purposes of applying the rules prohibiting premature campaigning,\u201d Macalintal said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince Aguilar is not yet considered as a candidate, then it is as if the President is not campaigning for a \u2018candidate\u2019 and therefore not liable for any election offense,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Macalintal was reacting to the statement of Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo that President Duterte did not use the word \u201cvote\u201d when he raised the hand of Aguilar, urging those present in an event on Monday, to vote for the singer.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter all, the President, like any other elected public officials, by the very nature of their office, engage in partisan political activities almost all year round, even outside of the campaign period,\u201d he said. \u201cPolitical partisanship is the inevitable essence of a political office, elective positions included, as held by the Supreme Court in the 2010 case of Quinto vs. Comelec.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macalintal noted that what the government official and Malaca\u00f1ang should do is to support the move to implement the law on electioneering.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps Congress could enact a law wherein expenses incurred by candidates upon the filing of their COCs be included in the computation of their allowable or authorized expenses, instead of asking them to account only for expenses incurred at the time of the campaign period. In this way, premature campaigning will be minimized if not totally eradicated since candidates must also save for expenses when the campaign period legally starts,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The campaign period for national positions will start on Feb. 12, 2019 and will last until May 11, 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— An election lawyer said Wednesday there is nothing wrong with President Rodrigo Duterte’s gesture in raising the hand of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":188499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-ferdinand-patinio","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}