DUMAGUETE CITY, Negros Oriental — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) here on Monday announced that a total of 978 aspirants have filed their certificates of candidacies (COCs) for various positions in the upcoming synchronized barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections on May 14.
Of the total, two have withdrawn their COCs before the deadline for filing, which was extended to April 21, had ended, said lawyer Gildu Agoncillo, the election officer of Dumaguete City on Monday.
Agoncillo said the list of certified candidates for next month’s synchronized polls is final, although this has yet to be reviewed by his office prior to submission to the Comelec’s main office.
“We still have to go through the list because some aspirants have written down long nicknames, even though the requirement is only for shorter ones,” he said.
There are 30 barangays in Dumaguete City, with 83,140 registered regular voters.
Only two barangays, namely Motong and Poblacion 5, have uncontested seats for the position of barangay chair, Comelec-Dumaguete records show.
The rest of the barangays have candidates for Punong Barangay between two to five persons.
As for SK chair, Poblacion Barangays 3, 4, 5 and 6 have lone contestants.
Records further show that for Punong Barangay, 80 aspirants have filed their COCs, while 589 are seeking the post of barangay kagawad, 91 are running for SK chair, and 218 for SK kagawads.
Agoncillo also cautioned those who plan to withdraw from the electoral race to do it earlier as the Comelec will have to delete their names from the list before the printing of the ballots.
The campaign period for the candidates will be from May 4 to midnight of May 12.
The Comelec-Dumaguete could also not yet determine how many of the barangay officials are incumbent and running for re-election, as they are still collating their data as of Monday. (Mary Judaline Partlow/PNA)
