The Commission on Elections (Comelec) warned to disqualify aspirants vying for local and national positions, who will not register their social media accounts for the 2025 May elections.
The Comelec recently issued a resolution mandating all candidates, party-lists, and their campaign teams to register their official social media accounts, pages, websites, podcasts, blogs, vlogs, and other online and internet-based campaign platforms until December 13 as part of their bid to regulate and prohibit the misuse of social media for next year’s elections.
However, the Comelec said that only 62 out of 44,000 aspirants and 156 party-list groups have so far registered as of October 21.
“Our appeal is that if they will not commit ethical violations, they should register their social media accounts because it’s very important for us to monitor their actions, posts, and expenses,” poll chairperson George Garcia said.
“They should adhere to the guidelines because we can disqualify them or file an election offense. It would be better if they just follow the rules because the purpose of the rules is to ensure that everything is fair,” the poll chief added.
The Task Force sa Katotohanan, Katapatan, at Katarungan (KKK) sa Halalan election task force will review the applications and will endorse the accounts for approval or denial to the Commission en banc.
Approved registration will be published on the poll body’s official website as well as social media accounts.
He said violating the guidelines would result in a show cause order, requiring the involved candidates or parties to explain why a complaint should not be filed against them, according to the resolution.
The poll chief explained that the use of social media influencers for campaigning will be included in the campaign expenditures.
