The Commission on Elections refuted the circulating information about when the plebiscite will be executed for the revision of the Constitution.
Chairperson George Erwin Garcia reminded everyone that Comelec should comply with the existing laws in the country.
This was the reaction of the chairperson to the information he received that the plebiscite would be done by June or July 2024.
Garcia emphasized that everything is still in the process of collecting signatures from voters, which will then undergo verification from the local offices of Comelec.
Based on the data from COMELEC, out of 254 districts in the country, only a few districts submitted their collected signatures to the local offices.
Garcia pointed out that some individuals bypassed COMELEC in terms of its timeline.
The chairperson claimed that if proponents submitted their collected signatures in the first week of January, there would be a possibility that the June or July plebiscite would be pushed through.
Nonetheless, involved individuals are still in the process of collecting and submitting signatures.
On the other hand, Garcia assures that voter registration will continue despite the ongoing verification of signatures from people’s initiatives.
However, he clarifies that registration may be suspended when the COMELEC has already determined if the signatures reached 12% of the country’s voters and 3% per district, which means the commission will have to set a date for the execution of the plebiscite.
Since a plebiscite is a type of special election, the Comelec will suspend registration 90 days before voting for delegates.
Yet, chairperson Garcia did not deny the fact that verification would have a big impact on the registration of voters.
The Comelec further insisted that the signatures will be ignored if a formal petition has not been filed with the commission and that the proponent is also obligated to inform the commission what the signatures are being collected for.