THE barangay officials included in the “narco list” will not be disqualified from running in the coming barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections, a Commission on Elections official said Friday.
“Under our laws, disqualifying is the final conviction, which means there was a trial and there was a ruling. The narcolist is short of that,” Comelec spokesman James Jimenez told reporters.
In other developments:
• The police are on full alert for possible campaign-related violence on Friday, the beginning of the campaign period for the 2018 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections.
Metro Manila Police Chief Camilo Cascolan said that, among the directives they will follow to ensure a violence-free elections is the signing of peace covenants in various barangays.
• Senator Bam Aquino called on the Bureau of Internal Revenue not to tax the honorariums of teachers who will render poll duty in the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections on May 14.
“When we pushed for the Election Service Reform Act, our intention was to give an appropriate reward to election volunteers like teachers. The law did not aim to tax their pay,” said Aquino, the principal author of Republic Act 10756 or the Election Service Reform Act.
“The cost of goods has been increasing due to the tax reform and still, deductions are still being made on the teachers’ honorariums.”
• Education Secretary Leonor Briones has petitioned the Comelec to increase the honorariums and allowances of the teachers who will serve in the barangay and SK elections and to exempt those from the withholding tax.
“Teachers have long been at the forefront of every electoral exercise in the country. With their immense experience in carrying out this enormous task in clustered precincts of huge populations, we deem that evaluation and discussion on the possible increase in honorariums and allowance are just and necessary,” Briones said in a statement on Thursday.
Jimenez said the value of the narcolist is that it allows voters to get some insight into the character of some people who may be running for office.
“The hope there is that they will use that insight to make their decision,” Jimenez said.
He made his statement days after the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency released the names of 207 barangay officials allegedly involved in illegal drugs.
Of the 207 names in PDEA’s narco list, 117 were barangay councilors while 90 were barangay chairmen, PDEA Director Aaron Aquino said.
“Most of the barangay officials are from the Bicol Region,” he said.
Officials were still validating information that 274 other village officials are linked to the illegal drug trade, Aquino said. With PNA