3. Petition for Disqualification

Election Contest

An election contest includes an election protest challenging the election or returns and an election quo warranto case challenging the elected person's eligibility or qualifications.

Effects of Disqualification

Any candidate who has been declared by final judgment to be disqualified shall not be voted for.

One who is disqualified under Section 68 is still technically considered to have been a candidate, albeit proscribed to continue as such only because of supervening infractions which do not, however, deny his or her statutory eligibility. (Tagolino v. HRET, G.R. 202202,2013).

When a person who is not qualified is voted for and eventually garners the highest number of votes, even the will of the electorate expressed through the ballot cannot cure the defect in the qualifications of the candidate. To rule otherwise is to trample upon and rend asunder the very law that sets forth the qualifications and disqualifications of candidates. Where the leading candidate was never a valid candidate because the certificate of candidacy was denied or cancelled, the qualified candidate with the highest number of valid votes may be proclaimed; this result does not automatically follow from a disqualification under Section 68. Knowledge by the electorate of a candidate’s disqualification is not necessary before a qualified candidate who placed second to a disqualified one can be proclaimed as the winner. (Maquiling v. Commission on Elections,G.R. No. 195649, 2013).

A person whose COC was cancelled due to ineligibility for failure to prove Filipino citizenship and the one-year residency requirement could not have been a valid candidate, and could not have been validly proclaimed. Thus, she could not have validly assumed her position. (Velasco v. Belmonte, G.R. 211140, 2016).

A disqualification proceeding determines whether the candidate may continue to run or, if elected, hold office; criminal prosecution for an election offense is separate. A petition to disqualify a candidate may be filed pursuant to Section 68 of the Omnibus Election Code. A Section 68 petition must rest on a ground specified in that section, including its expressly enumerated violations of the Omnibus Election Code and R.A. No. 6646; an offense under another law is not a ground merely because it is an election offense. (Ejercito v. COMELEC, G.R. 212398, 2014).