By Ferdinand Patinio/Philippine News Agency
MANILA — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Wednesday reminded winning and losing candidates and political parties, who participated in the May 2019 mid-term polls, that the last day of filing their Statements of Contributions and Expenditures (SOCE) is on Thursday, June 13.
“This is to advise all candidates and political parties, that participated in the last May 2019 elections to comply with their obligations to file their SOCE before the appropriate Comelec office,” Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said in a statement.
Section 14 of Republic Act 7166 requires every candidate and political party shall, within 30 days after the Election Day, file with the Commission the full, true, and itemized SOCEs.
Also required to file such document are those whose campaigns were self-funded, those who did not incur any expenditures and those who did not pursue their campaign activities despite filing their Certificates of Candidacy or those who withdrew their candidacies.
According to Comelec Resolution 10505, the office of an elected candidate, who failed to file SOCE, shall be considered vacant pursuant to Section 11 of the Omnibus Election Code (OEC) until he has complied and submitted his SOCE within six months from the proclamation.
After the said period and the candidate failed to assume office, a permanent vacancy occurs for which said office shall be filled up in accordance with the law.
The resolution added that elected candidates and party-lists with late SOCE filing but within six months shall be charged with lower administrative fines with the amount depending on the elective posts concerned.
National political parties, party-list organizations, and senators will have to pay PHP10,000, instead of the previous amount of PHP30,000.
For provincial political parties, they would be charged PHP8,500 (from PHP22,500); while provincial governors and vice governors have to pay PHP8,000 (from PHP25,000).
An amount of PHP7,000 will also have to be paid by provincial board members, congressmen, local political parties, mayors, and vice mayors (from PHP20,000); while councilors will need to pay PHP6,000 (from PHP15,000).
It added that the deadline shall be “final and non-extendible” to those who did not win in the mid-term election.
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