The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has announced that there will be changes in the conduct of campaign activities for next year’s elections.
“The most prominent feature I see is that we would be regulating the number of people who can participate in in-person campaigns,” Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said in a television interview on Thursday.
The poll body official added that the number of individuals would also depend on the quarantine status of the area.
“It’s likely going to be determined in large part by the alert level in a particular place,” he said.
Jimenez added that the guidelines will determine on how many people will be able to participate in the campaign group.
“We are going to systematize that so that we have rules to apply all over the country that will define how many people can be in an in-person campaigning entourage at any given place,” he said.
The Comelec is currently in the process of crafting campaign guidelines for next year’s polls.
Candidates who are seeking for national positions have 90 days to campaign which will begin on February 8 and will run until May 7, 2022.
A total of 45 days of campaign are given to those running for local positions which are set to start on March 25 until May 7, 2022.
The election period for the May 2022 polls will be from January 9 to June 6, 2022.
Some parts of the country, including Metro Manila, are placed under the five-tier alert level system while other areas remain under old quarantine classification schemes amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Source: Philippines News Agency