Opposition Senator Leila De Lima said on Saturday, Nov. 20 that the law which allowed substitution of candidates became an "opportunistic" tool in the hands of "party hoppers" in ways that the public has never seen before.
In a statement, De Lima said that the so-called "party hoppers" include vice presidential aspirant Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, presidential aspirant Sen. Christopher "Bong Go" and senatorial aspirant President Duterte.
The lady senator explained that their candidacies in parties they were not even members of were facilitated by the "rampant" use of placeholders who were essentially nuisance candidates.
She added that their sole purpose was to help "prolong the power-haggling" and political machinations taking place behind the Filipinos’ collective back, and thereafter relinquish their candidacies to these party-hoppers."
"To be sure, Sara was not even a member of Lakas-CMD until the day she filed for the position of VP. And neither were Bong Go and Duterte members of that forgettable party propped up by the Belgicas until the last minute of filing," De Lima stated.
Through this particular process, according to the senator, the law on substitution was "bastardized". She stated that the law was supposed to give political parties the opportunity for substitution.
According to her, the substitute should already be a member of the party substituting at the time of the filing of the certificate of candidacy of the candidate to be substituted. If not, then the privilege of substitution by the political party should be deemed to have been lost.
"Substitution attaches as a privilege of political parties, not of individuals who were not even party members," she said.
"As bastardized by the Dutertes, the substitution law has served not the political parties, but party-hoppers who use the political parties for individual, not party interests. It does not help of course that Lakas-CMD and the Belgica party allowed themselves to be used in this patent mockery of election laws," De Lima stated.
She mentioned that this kind of practice must end in this election cycle and said that if not, there will always be Dutertes out there who will continue to "exploit" loopholes in election laws and use privileges accorded to political parties for their own individual interests.