Comelec: Without final court ruling, candidate’s name to stay on ballot

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MANILA, Philippines — The names of candidates who face a complaint will remain on the ballots without final judgement and conviction, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said on Thursday.

Comelec chairman George Erwin Garcia made the pronouncement when asked if Sen. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa’s reelection bid would be affected once he received a warrant of arrest from the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Garcia said in an ambush interview at Palacio del Gobernador: “It does not affect a person’s candidacy because, as long as there is no final judgement and conviction, their names remain in the ballot.”

Dela Rosa said he has yet to receive any warrant of arrest from the ICC.

Garcia declined to further elaborate in absence of this warrant of arrest.

“I will not give any speculation or statement since he has no warrant yet, it is very speculative at this point,” Garcia said. “We will cross the bridge when we get there on that particular issue.”

READ: Bato dela Rosa: I can defend myself at ICC even if I’m not a lawyer

According to Kristina Conti, an ICC assistant to counsel, dela Rosa and retired police chief Oscar Albayalde could be the next to receive arrest warrants from ICC for crimes against humanity over their roles in the previous administration’s bloody drug war.

Former President Rodrigo Duterte is now detained at The Hague over his alleged crimes against humanity.

Duterte was the chief architect of the bloody drug war waged during his roles as the country’s Chief Executive and as mayor of Davao City.

The drug under his presidency claimed at least 6,000 lives during his term as president, according to official government data.

But human rights watchdogs and the ICC prosecutor estimated the death toll under Duterte’s drug war to be between 12,000 and 30,000 from 2016 to 2019 alone, as they noted that several of these are extrajudicial killings.