COMELEC Allows Extension on SOCE Submission
For whatever reasons, the Commission on Elections(COMELEC) announced the extension of submission of statement of contributions and expenditures (SOCE). The sudden shift was formally reported by local news outlets, thus, any political party is now allowed to proceed the late filing of required documents.
Other political analysts predicted the decision of the COMELEC while others are vehemently opposing the judgment of the national elections officials. In general, this topic has sparked an online debate since the rule was clearly disseminated to all political parties that the hard deadline would only be until June 8, 2016.
As expected, leaders of other political parties also reacted to the decision. Congressman Bebot Alvarez said no one should be above the law. He added, "It's the problem of the political parties, including Liberal Party, if they failed to do the filing."
An initial report last week cited the Liberal party as one of those who failed to submit their SOCE to the COMELEC. The filing was only made on June 14, 2016 which was already passed the deadline.
Netizens are disappointed to the current list of officials of the poll body. Thousands of people turned to social media to emphasize the incompetent behavior and act of favoritism of the COMELEC officers.
Significant amount of people are saying, "the influence of the Liberal Party is really unstoppable!"
In the coming days, we are expecting that the camp of Rodrigo Duterte will provide proper actions on this controversial issue. We are also hopeful that this unfair ruling will be corrected before it can jeopardize related political matters.