Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III on Wednesday, March 9 suggested the simplification of election laws, taking into account jurisprudence which interprets the current provisions of a law.

Pimentel made the suggestion as the Senate committee on electoral reforms and people’s participation tackled Senate Bills 2439 and 2461 seeking to remove withdrawal as ground of substitution of candidates.

Current election laws should not be these complicated, he pointed out.

During a virtual hearing by the committee chaired by Senator Imee Marcos, Pimentel said he believes it is high time to create an Election Code Commission and draft a new Omnibus Election Code.

Marcos agreed that the current Omnibus Election Code is already outdated and no longer responsive to the needs of the present time.

“I’ve been campaigning for a new consolidated Omnibus Election Code because our current election code dates back to 1981,” she said.

Albert Rodriguez of the Commission on Elections' (Comelec) law department, said the poll body supports two Senate bills on this issue to effectively improve the electoral process.

He, however, sought clarification on what acts or events fall under the term ‘’incapacity’’.

Rodriguez asked whether ‘’incapacity’’ implies physical, medical, mental or financial.

Senate 2439 authored by Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel ‘’Migz’’ Zubiri and Senators Sherwin Gatchalian, Nancy Binay, Joel Villanueva and Grace Poe cited Section 77 of the Omnibus Election Code bestows to a political party the privilege of allowing the substitution of a party eandidate who either (1) dies, (2) is disqualified for any cause, or (3) has withdrawn his or her candidacy. The first two grounds for substitution are involuntary in nature, while the third is a voluntary act.

‘’Unfortunately, the act of withdrawing one’s candidacy as a ground for substitution has been abused over the years, where vigilance and compliance over deadlines have been disregarded as the option ofsubstitution has always been available. This unfortunate practice ofjust fielding anyone to be a party’s candidate for the sake of complying with the Comelec deadline is observed by some as a mockery of the process offiling certificates of candidacies,’’ they pointed out.

‘’Accordingly, this bill seeks to modify the grounds for substitution by removing the option of substitution in a case where an aspirant or official candidate of a political party voluntarily withdraws his candidacy, and adding incapacity as a ground for substitution of candidates. The rationale for this policy limitation is to further support the strengthening and institutionalization ofthe political party system in the Philippines and to level off the playing field among candidates,’’ they added.

Marcos said a similar bill filed by Senator Leila de Lima stressed that there should be no shopping for ‘’rock star’’ candidates as substitutes.

She later said a Senate technical working group (TWG) would harmonize all the different suggestions or recommendations to come up with a bill that would be debated on the Senate session floor.