The Supreme Court (SC) declared anew that lack of financial capacity to sustain campaigns, non-membership in a political party, being virtually unknown, and low probability of winning do not by themselves determine who are nuisance candidates.
A nuisance candidate “is one whose candidacy was lodged merely to create confusion or whose candidacy mocks or causes disrepute to the election process, hence, there is patently no intention to run for office,” the SC said.
It also said that “a candidate without the machinery of a political party or the finances to mount a nationwide campaign ‘cannot be lumped together with another candidate who was found to have mocked or caused disrepute to the election process.’”
In a unanimous full court decision, the SC reminded that “it is imperative to recognize and uphold the fundamental democratic principle that a citizen has the right to participate in the electoral processes by running for public office.”
However, the SC pointed out that “this right must be harmonized with the practical constraints faced by Commission on Elections (Comelec) with respect to overseeing and ensuring a ‘free, orderly, honest, peaceful and credible elections.’”
It said that “the sheer volume of candidates poses logistical challenges, potentially leading to an unwieldy ballot and hampering the electorate's ability to make informed choices.”
Thus, it pointed out that “the Comelec must streamline the electoral process while simultaneously allowing a fair and accessible competition among candidates by effectively managing its resources and reducing voter confusion through its ability to regulate a finite number of candidates and a manageable ballot.”
The SC decision was written by Senior Associate Justice Marvic M.V.F. Leonen and was made public on Monday, Jan. 13.
It resolved the petition filed by Juan Juan Olila Ollesca who filed his candidacy as an independent aspirant in the 2022 presidential election.
On Oct. 21, 2021, the Comelec’s Law Department filed, on its own initiative, a petition to declare Ollesca who is “virtually unknown except possibly in the locality where he resides,” and “as such, he has no capability to launch a nationwide campaign to enable him to be known nationally within the campaign period….”
On Dec. 13, 2021, the Comelec’s second division granted the petition and declared Ollesca a nuisance candidate. On Jan. 3, 2022, the Comelec’s en banc (full commission) affirmed the ruling of the second division. Ollesca appealed to the SC.
While the issue had become moot and academic because of the conduct of the 2022 presidential election and the proclamation and assumption to office of President Marcos, the SC decided to rule on the legal issues raised by Ollesca.
The SC granted the petition of Ollesca as it dismissed the petition filed by the Comelec’s Law Department to declare him a nuisance candidate.
In granting the petition, the SC cited its 1965 decision which declared that property qualifications cannot be imposed on electoral candidates. “Doing so goes against ‘social justice which presupposes equal opportunity for all, rich and poor alike, and that, accordingly, no person shall, by reason of poverty, be denied the chance to be elected to public office,’” it said.
Also, the SC cited its 2019 and 2022 decisions which ruled that the Comelec abused its discretion when the poll body declared a senatorial candidate “a nuisance candidate’ for lack of financial capacity to wage a nationwide campaign.
It said that “by so doing, the Comelec has effectively imposed a 'property qualifications are inconsistent with the nature and essence of the Republican system ordained in our Constitution and the principle of social justice underlying the same.’”
The SC also said:
“In the present case, the Comelec repeated its general allegation of a candidate's lack of financial capacity to wage a national campaign to shift the burden of proof upon the candidate.
“It pointed to the circumstances of Ollesca's running as an independent candidate and his being an entrepreneur, arguing that Ollesca is virtually unknown and therefore has no capacity to persuade a substantial number of the electorate, thereby proving that he has no bona fide intention to run and puts the election process in mockery.
“From the foregoing, it appears that the Comelec has the propensity to employ a ‘cookie-cutter motion’ that generally alleges a candidate's lack of financial capacity to wage a national campaign in an attempt to shift the burden of proving bona fide intent to run for public office upon said candidate.
“We reiterate this Court's rulings in Marquez (2019), De Alban, and Marquez (2022) that: (a) the Comelec cannot conflate financial capacity requirement with the bona fide intention to run for public office; and (b) the imposition of having financial capacity to hit the campaign trail is a property qualification that is prohibited under the constitution and is likewise not a valid ground to characterize a candidate as a nuisance candidate.
“To emphasize, the pivotal criterion that characterizes a nuisance candidate lies in the absence of a bona fide intent to run for public office and it is incumbent upon the Comelec to identify and to adduce supporting evidence of acts or circumstances that show a candidate's lack of bona fide intent to run for public office, with the objective of ‘preventing a faithful determination of the true will of the electorate.”
"This determination is governed by the statutes, and the concept is satisfactorily defined by the Omnibus Election Code.”