The Commission on Elections (Comelec) announced on Thursday that it will release the initial list of candidates for next year’s midterm elections before the end of this month.

Comelec spokesperson John Rex Laudiangco said at the Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon public briefing that the initial list would be available on the Comelec website around 29 October 2024.

However, Laudiangco stressed that it does not guarantee that all candidates would be allowed to run in the polls.

“Let us remember that this October, we expect all kinds of cases, including petitions to cancel or deny due course to Certificates of Candidacies (CoC), disqualification or perpetual disqualification and petitions to declare as nuisance candidates,” Laudiangco said.

He also assured that the CoCs would undergo thorough scrutiny.

Based on data provided by Comelec chairperson George Erwin Garcia, the initial areas in the country that have forwarded the hard and soft copies of CoCs and other election documents were the provinces of Abra, Apayao, Benguet, Baguio City, Ifugao, Kalinga, Mt. Province from Cordillera Administrative Region; Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, Pangasinan and La Union in Ilocos Region.