The last several weeks have witnessed speculation on mainstream media and on social networks about who Philippines' next President will be or should be. There have been half a dozen names floating around -- some calculated guesses, some pure media speculation and some self-proclaiming their candidature.
But during the closing of the filing of Certificates of Candidacy (COC's) more than a hundred individuals - compared to just 99 during the 2010 elections - have announced they are running for the 2016 presidential elections.
Candidates for president, vice president and senator filed their COCs from Oct. 12 to 16 at the Comelec main office in Manila; and aside from the 130 presidential aspirants there were 19 candidates for vice president and 172 for senator.
However, not all 130 may be declared as official candidates for President, the Comelec said.
“We gave the people the chance to file but at the same time, we reserve the right to cut it down to those with a reasonable expectation of victory,” Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said.
Jimenez said by Dec. 10, the poll body would release the final list of candidates running for the 18,069 national and local positions in 2016.
In the last 2010 national elections, 99 filed COCs for president but only 10 were declared official candidates.
Here is a list of presidentiables, which includes the top contenders -- Sen. Grace Poe, Vice President Jejomar Binay, former interior secretary Manuel Roxas II and Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago.
(Images from the Comelec website)
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