Comelec gets more signature forms for People’s Initiative, but no formal petition yet — Garcia

The Commission on Election said its local offices continue to receive signature forms for the People’s Initiative that seeks to amend the 1987 Constitution, with forms from around 600 cities and municipalities nationwide having arrived as of Thursday morning.

“Mukhang patuloy na bawat araw dumarami at ngayon nga kulang-kulang anim na daan 'yung signature forms at patuloy nga na nakakatanggapang local Comelec offices namin (It seems that signature forms are increasing everyday and now we already have more or less 600 and our local Comelec offices continue to receive them),” Comelec chairperson George Garcia told reporters on Thursday.

Garcia said the primary mandate of the Comelec “is to count first what we received, afterwards our local offices will issue a certification.”

He said it is part of the Comelec’s duty to collect all signature forms concerning the call of a group for Charter change via people’s initiative, noting that "no formal petition has been filed yet."

Citing the poll body’s guidelines, Garcia said the issuance of certification by the local Comelec offices is required in filing a petition.

He added that election officers should doublecheck the count before issuing a certification that they received a specific number of signatures.

Garcia said the verification of signatures by the local offices will follow after the verification of “sufficiency in form and substance.”

The verification, he noted, will include the voting status of the signatories and the legitimacy of every signature. 

Certificates will then be issued stating the number of voters who signed, which will be given to the proponent as part of the documents to be submitted to the clerk of Comelec. 

After that, the Comelec clerk will evaluate the petition and submit to the en banc its decision as to whether the documents comply with sufficiency in form and substance.

If the en banc concludes that all requirements are met, including the veracity of all signatures -- meaning the voters who signed the petition are registered and under active status and their signatures match with the Comelec database -- then an order for verification will be issued.

Validated signatures will be counted and then another certification will be issued. 

Garcia said no plebiscite will be scheduled if even just one legislative district failed to reach the 3 percent requirement. In this case, the petition will be dismissed.

“Mayroon po 253 districts sa buong bansa. Isa lang po sa 253 na distrito ang hindi makakuha ng 3 percent of the registered voters sa distrito na yan ay madi-dismiss na po namin ang petisyon kahit pa ang nakuha nila sa buong bansa ay more 12 percent or even 20 percent (We have 253 districts throughout the country. We will dismiss the petition if one of the 253 districts fails to get 3 percent of their registered voters, even if the proponent got 12 percent or even 20 percent nationwide),” Garcia said.