The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) announced on Tuesday that individuals seeking public office can file their Certificates of Candidacy (COCs) provided they do not have a final and executory criminal conviction.
COMELEC Chairperson George Erwin Garcia clarified that both local and national aspirants retain their right to participate in elections until a definitive court ruling dictates otherwise.
“First, I just want to say, there is no reference to personality…As long as a person is not convicted by final judgment involving a crime or another crime that has moral torpidity or a crime punishable by more than one year, he can run,” Garcia stated during an interview following a stakeholders’ forum at the Diamond Hotel in Manila.
“Even if he is convicted by a municipal trial court, regional trial court, until he appeals, he can run. Because here in our country, we have a provision in the constitution that everybody is presumed innocent until the contrary is proven,” the poll body chief added.
Garcia emphasized that a conviction from a lower court is insufficient to bar an individual from entering an election.
“And you will only know that you are guilty when the process is over. So if it is just a conviction in a lower court, that is not a reason for a person not to run. The conviction needs to be final and executory first before he can be disqualified,” Garcia said.
“That is the truth, not just in the position or personality you mentioned, even in all positions until there is a final and executory decision,” he added.
The statement comes in light of Senator Jinggoy Estrada’s recent arrest by authorities on Monday regarding a plunder case before the Sandiganbayan. Despite the legal proceedings, Estrada remains eligible to seek re-election for his second Senate term in 2028.
“It’s simple. As long as there is no criminal conviction, in the case he is facing or in the case anyone is facing. COMELEC will accept the Certificates of Candidacy,” Garcia said.
“And if there is no final decision and no restraining order from any high court in the Commission on Elections, the name will be included in the list,” he added.
In a separate development, COMELEC has granted stakeholders a two-week window to submit feedback before finalizing the terms of reference (TOR) for the 2028 national and local elections.
“We will give all the stakeholders who are here a copy of our TOR and we will give them two weeks to work on it and give suggestions and we will not finalize it until their suggestions are there for us to discuss,” Garcia explained.
“And this is what you can expect that when we approved the TOR, there will be input from various sectors and stakeholders. In fact, we also want later, before we finalize, including political parties,” he added.