Article by:
Ferdinand Patinio
MANILA – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will soon release the ballot faces for the May 9, 2022 National and Local Elections (NLE).
Elaiza David, director of the Comelec - Education and Information Department (EID), said there are three ballots with different sizes to be used in next year's polls.
The longest ballot measuring 30 inches will be used in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
The ballots for non-BARMM areas will measure 26 inches while the size of the ballots for the overseas voters will be 25 inches.
“The overseas ballot is 25 inches. The longest is BARMM since their names are longer and they have more candidates. For non-BARMM ballots is 26 inches and 30 inches for BARMM,” she said in a virtual press briefing Monday.
The poll body official added that the front side of the ballot will have the national and local positions for both BARMM and non-BARMM voters while party list can be found at the back of the ballot.
Meanwhile, overseas ballots will only contain names for national positions such as president, vice president, senators, and party-list groups.
The names of candidates for national positions are at the front portion of the ballot while party-list groups are at the back.
Based on the latest data from the poll body, there are around 1.7 million overseas voters.
“For those who are not well known, they were not considered as a nuisance. We have grounds for declaring a candidate as nuisance, which means they passed. They are assessed to be qualified and have the bonafide intent to run and the capacity for them to lead was established," David said when asked why the Comelec included aspirants who are not so popular.
As of January 11, the tentative list of candidates has 10 candidates for president, nine for vice president, 64 for senators, and 178 party-list groups.
Those who are running for president are: Abella, Ernesto Corpus; De Guzman, Leody; Domagoso, Francisco Moreno; Gonzales, Norberto Borja; Lacson, Panfilo Morena; Mangondato, Faisal Montay; Marcos, Ferdinand Jr. Romualdez; Montemayor, Jose Jr. Cabrera; Pacquiao Emmanuel Dapidran; Robredo, Maria Leonor Gerona.
For Vice President, the aspirants are Atienza, Jose Jr. Livioko; Bello Walden Flores; David, Rizalito Yap; Duterte Sara Zimmerman; Lopez, Emmanuel Sto Domingo; Ong, Willie Tan; Pangilinan, Francis Nepomuceno; Serapio, Carlos Gelacio; Sotto, Vicente III Castelo.
On the other hand, David said they will have a virtual walkthrough of the National Printing Office (NPO) in Quezon City, where the ballots will be printed on Tuesday morning.
She added that they will have another announcement as to when they will commence the printing of the official ballots.
“We will have another announcement regarding when will the printing start but it is going to be after the walkthrough,” the Comelec official said. (PNA)
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