Commission on Election chairperson George Garcia on Friday emphasized that a plebiscite from the People’s Initiative to amend the 1987 Constitution will only trigger after a petition is filed in the en banc main office.

“Maliwanag na maliwanag po na ang Comelec ay hindi pwedeng matali sa kahit na anong timelines ng kahit na kaninong grupo o tao (It is very clear that the Comelec cannot be tied to any timelines by any group or individual),” Garcia told reporters in an interview.

Albay Representative Joey Salceda earlier said that the proponents of PI for Charter change are aiming to have the plebiscite by July as they expect to reach the required number of signatures by then.

“As far as it was explained to me by the proponents, they want to hit it before July, July plebiscite,” he said.

Garcia, however, noted that Comelec will only determine the timeline of a plebiscite event based on the existing laws and policies.

“Yung mga sinabi nilang dates nakit ko po ‘yan sa social media, pero ang katotohanan—paano nila masasabi ang timelines gayong wala pa namang pina-file na petitisyon sa Comelec? (I saw in social media the dates that they were targeting, but the truth is—how can they say there are timelines like that, if there’s no petition has been filed to the Comelec?),” he said.

“Magsisimula po ang lahat, ’yung trigger ay magsisimula kapagka may nai-file na dito sa main office ng Comelec na isang petisyon. Dyan po tayo pupwedeng magkaroon ng computation (All of these will start, the trigger will start if there’s one petition filed in the main office of the Comelec. From there, we can start the computation),” he added.

Garcia said the current process is still on the signature gathering.

“Ngayon po, sa ating palagay ay hindi pa po sapat at base sa ating monitoring— 253 po ang ating distrito—mukhang wala pa naman po sa 253 na distrito ang nasa-submit na signature sa mga local Comelec offices natin (So far, we think that it is not enough and based on our monitoring, we have 253 district, it looks like the signatures from different districts submitted to our local Comelec offices has not yet reached to 253),” he noted.

The Comelec chief said it is too early to estimate that the conduct of a plebiscite may be done by June or July.

“Masyadong napapangunahan naman po ang Comelec, sapagkat magbe-verify pa po kami ng signatures later kung magpa file ng petition eh yung verifcation pa lang po hindi na ganoon kadali iyon (It seems that they are too much advancing against the Comelec—because we will still have to verify the signatures later if the petition is filed, the verification is not that easy),” he added, noting that the verification will include the voting status of the signatories and matching the legitimacy of every signature to registered voters.

Garcia noted that the verification of the signatures shall not exceed 60 days as mandated by the law.

“At this point, medyo malabo po ‘yung sinasabi nilang June na plebisito (Saying that plebiscite would be done in June is still vague),” he said.

“We don’t want to compromise the quality of verification. Our local Comelec officers cannot just do a glance only. It must be checked carefully and we will look closely at how did signatures came out,” he added.