APRIL 10, 2016

NR # 4166B

Public appointive officials must first vacate their positions

before seeking elective posts
A proposed law disqualifying a person who fails to vacate his/her public appointive
position before or on the day of filing of certificate of candidacy for any elective position,
now awaits plenary consideration.
The House Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms chaired by Rep. Fredenil
H. Castro, who also signed-in as co-author, had earlier approved and recommended
plenary passage of HB 1976, principally authored by Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus
Rodriguez and Abante Mindanao Party-list Rep. Maximo Rodriguez, without
amendments.
There is need to clarify and strengthen the intention of the law when it provided
that appointive public officials were to be deemed resigned upon the filing of their
certificate of candidacy as to prevent these officials from utilizing vast government
resources for their political operation, the authors said.
HB 1976, one of the more than two dozen bills in the Business for the Day list of
the House plenary consideration before the current adjournment of Congress in early
February, is entitled An Act providing for the disqualification of any person holding a
public appointive office who fails to vacate a public appointive office on the day of filing
of the Certificate of Candidacy for any elective position, amending for the purpose R.A.
No. 8436, as amended.
A key provision of the amendatory bill states: .Provided, Finally, that any
appointive official who fails to vacate the office of the day of filing the certificate of
candidacy shall be automatically disqualified as candidate for the elective position and
shall not be eligible to assume the functions of the elective office.
As a backgrounder to their electoral reform initiative, Rodriguez cited Batas
Pambansa Bilang 881, otherwise known as the Omnibus Election Code, which provides
that persons holding an appointive office or position are automatically resigned on the date
of filing of the certificate of candidacy.
Subsequent election laws, R.A. 8436 (Automated Elections Act) and R.A. 9006
(Fair Elections Act), were both silent on the said rule (provided for under BP881), thereby
making BP 881 still the applicable law insofar as the deemed resigned provisions for
appointive office is concerned, he added.
Rodriguez further recalled the enactment of R.A. 9369, which amended R.A. 9436,
but still retained the deemed resigned provision for appointive officials. However, he

added that since R.A. 9369 adjusted the deadline for the filing of the certificate of
candidacy to an earlier date, confusions arose on the interpretation as to the exact time of
the deemed resignation, whether at the time of the filing of the certificate of candidacy or
during the start of the campaign period.
There is need to clarify the law on appointive officials as they file their certificate
of candidacy, the authors said, stressing that we should continue with the long honored
rule that appointive public officials shall be considered resigned upon filing of their
certificate of candidacy for public elective positions.
He also noted a marked distinction between appointive public officials from
elective public officials. Unlike their elective counterparts who have fixed term as willed
by the electorate, appointive officials are either co-terminus with their appointing
authority or career officials who are prohibited from electioneering and partisan
activities, he added.
Appointive officials can also utilize vast government resources for their political
operations if not considered resigned when they file their certificates of candidacy,
Rodriguez pointed out.
The authors also recalled that the same bill was originally introduced during the 15 th
Congress. It was approved by the House of Representatives and transmitted to the Senate
where it failed to see the light of day. (30) dpt