It was the last day for the filing of Certificates of Candidacy for the 2016 National and Local Elections. The flow of filers had slowed to a trickle and the people managing the process – myself included – had too much time on our hands. Worse, there were blank COCs for Senator.
So I did what any right-minded person would do: I filled one out.
Now the law on this is that an appointed official – such as myself – who files a COC will be deemed ipso facto (which is a fancy way of saying ‘automatically’) resigned. For a brief moment in 2009, the Supreme Court had changed that rule, only to change it back less than six months later. As I was filling out the form in front of me, all of this was flashing through my mind.
Y’see back in 2009, I did, in fact, try to file a COC for Senator. I wanted to see what would happen if I took the Court’s ruling literally. I was also very curious about what the COMELEC would do. As it turned out, it was a good thing that the lawyers receiving the COCs refused to give me the time of day because, I later found out, some COMELEC employees had actually gone ahead and filed COCs. Long story short, they were dismissed from the COMELEC.
And now, here I was again, filling out another COC and generally making an ass out of myself. I stopped eventually, of course, but only when I’d gotten as far as the section labeled, “Name to Appear on the Ballot.” Fortunately, around that time, some … flamboyant folks came in and I had to give way.
Today, almost two months later, I found out that those filers are well on their way to being declared nuisances, just like I would be, if I had been fool enough that time I almost ran for Senator.