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COMELEC MEMO No.

2017001
Dated: 15 February 2017

TO: Loyola Schools Student Body


FROM: Ateneo Commission on Elections
RE: Unaccredited Coalition Promotions

Good day!

It has come to the Commissions attention that there may be potential confusion
regarding the guidelines for coalition promotions for prospective student groups desiring to
form coalitions for the upcoming 2017 Sanggunian General Elections.

Coalitions are, as per the Provisionally Approved Electoral Code of 2016 (Article III,
Section 1), temporary alliances for campaign purposes among candidates. Coalitions allow
member candidates to share campaign materials as well as the corresponding costs, call
for mass actions, and refer to themselves by the name they adopt, among others. And they
must inform COMELEC of their intent to form a coalition during the period of Filing of
Candidacy (February 20-26), and then file the necessary requirements (February 27 - March
5).

As such, it is understandable that prospective student groups desiring to form


coalitions may wish to begin recruitment of likely candidates to form a coalition, and it is
hoped that this will encourage more students to participate as potential candidates for the
Sanggunian.

However, as per the Code (Article VI, Section 1a), the Campaign Period shall start
on a date to be set by the Ateneo COMELEC Board of Commissioners, and shall end on the
day before the first election day. This period is March 11 to March 26. Therefore, no
campaigning shall occur prior to this period. And public promotion of a prospective
coalitions name, logo or brand (among other things) is therefore illegal, even if it is
nominally for the mere purposes of recruitment; especially so as prospective coalitions
remain unregistered and unaccredited by the Commission.

Thank you!

With integrity at heart,


(Sgd.) Dom Martin Raises
Chief Commissioner
Commissioner for Human Resources

(Sgd.) Wilbert Jan R. Liao (Sgd.) Hannelore Borja


Commissioner for Logistics Commissioner for Secretariat

(Sgd.) Frances Nangan (Sgd.) Martin Moreno


Commissioner for Communications Commissioner for Finance

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