Lacson to candidates: Respect elective positions

 Lacson to candidates: Respect elective positions

SEN. Panfilo "Ping" Lacson has appealed to fellow candidates in the 2022 national elections to respect the positions they are seeking and not make a mockery out of it.

The senator, Partido Reporma chairman, was running for president in next year's polls with his longtime ally, Senate President Vicente "Tito" Sotto 3rd, Nationalist People's Coalition (NPC) chairman, as his running mate.

In a speech before his fellow Caviteños in General Trias City on Friday, Lacson has urged voters to respect the sanctity of their ballots and think about the future generation when they troop to the polls on May 9, 2022.

He also made a similar appeal to other personalities involved in the 2022 polls "to give the same level of respect to the elective positions they are seeking."

"Voting is not the only thing that is scared, but running for a public office as well. Let us not play with it because we are the ones who will suffer but the next generation," Lacson said in Filipino.

With the Philippines facing tough challenges such as the ongoing pandemic, mass unemployment, economic recession, and foreign incursions in the West Philippine Sea, among others, Lacson said "it behooves every Filipino voter to take the elections seriously."

Opposition Sen. Leila de Lima has filed Senate Bill (SB) 2461 seeking to prevent the abuse of the law governing the substitution of candidates for the national and local elections.

De Lima, a former election lawyer, said SB 2461 aims to concretize into legislation the Commission on Election Rules which provide that substitution due to withdrawal must be more limited in scope than substitution due to death and disqualification.

"The Omnibus Election Code recognizes the importance of our party system and our political parties and therefore provides for an opportunity for political parties to replace their candidates before the elections," de Lima said.

"It can readily be gleaned that the practice of substituting candidates with individuals who were not party members, but only belatedly, even up to the point of taking their oath as party member only on the date of the filing of the substitute certificate of candidacy, is an outright bastardization of the privilege of substitution accorded by the law to political parties," she added.

Lacson also voiced hope that his senatorial bets — former national police chief Guillermo Eleazar, health advocate Dr. Minguita Padilla, and broadcaster Raffy Tulfo — will continue his advocacy of guarding the national budget when they make it to the Senate.

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