TWO House leaders on Tuesday strongly urged the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to remove the substitution option for candidates.

Deputy Speakers Prospero “Butch” Pichay, Jr. of Surigao del Sur and Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro City said substitution is not a good practice in the political arena nowadays.

“But you know this business of substitution is actually creating a chess or poker game among all the parties because like for example, the PDP-Laban fielded Sen. Bato del Rosa as presidential candidate. But we all know that Sen. Bato is not really serious about running for President,” Pichay said who denied that Lakas-CMD’s presidential aspirant Anna Capella Velasco, the party’s executive director, and vice-presidential bet Lyle Fernando Uy are mere “placeholders” waiting for real candidates to substitute them.

“The business of substitution is actually not a good practice,” Pichay said.

There are 97 presidential aspirants and 29 vice presidential hopefuls and voluntary substitution is allowed until November 15 before the final list of candidates will be released in December.

Rodriguez proposed certain reforms that would “put an end to the manipulation and mockery of the election process.”

“One reform I am proposing is an almost absolute ban on substitution of candidates by political parties. Another is the restoration of the old rule requiring incumbent officials to resign or to be deemed automatically resigned upon the filing of their certificates of candidacy (COCs) for other positions,” Rodriguez said.

Since the introduction of the practice that allows candidate switching, Rodriguez said many people did not believe that some aspirants were serious and qualified for the higher positions for which they filed their COCs.

“It is lamentable that for the May 2022 elections, certain candidates for the presidency are perceived to be proxies for some personalities, even if they can be considered as serious aspirants,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez added he is proposing that substitution be prohibited unless the candidate-nominee of a political party dies or is disqualified before election day.

This will give the Comelec more time to screen COCs filers, prepare the finalist list of candidates and print the official ballots and related paraphernalia, Rodriguez stressed.

He added that under the present election law, the Comelec has to wait until the November 15 substitution deadline before finalizing the list of candidates even if the COC filing period has ended last October 8.

“If we maintain the present October 8 COC filing deadline, the commission will have an additional time of more than one month to prepare for the elections. Alternatively, we can move the timelines closer to election day like setting November 15 as the close of the COC filing period,” he said.

Rodriguez said the candidate substitution ban and the requirement for candidates who are incumbent officials to resign are reforms that would complement each other.

“A candidate would not agree to be a proxy for a dawdling, wavering or indecisive aspirant if he would have to give up his office. The resignation requirement would apply to all levels, national or local, whether aiming for higher or lower positions,” he said.

He pointed out that the resignation requirement would level the playing field among elective and appointive officials like Cabinet members who are candidates.

“It would prevent them from using their offices, public funds and their influence to promote their candidacies,” Rodriguez said.

He stressed that his proposed reforms would force aspirants to take running for higher office seriously and to stop manipulating and mocking the electoral process.

“These would also make more people believe in the integrity of our elections,” he added.