MANILA, Philippines — At least 500,000 local candidates are expected to compete with over 18,000 positions in the 2025 midterms elections, the Commission on Elections said Sunday.
“With 18,271 positions to be filled up, easily we can have 500,000 aspirants in the 2025 national and local elections and Bangsamoro Parliamentary elections,” Commissioner George Garcia said Sunday.
The poll body official said a total of 12 Senate seats, 63 party-list slots, and 254 congressional district representative positions are up for grabs in the upcoming national elections.
At the local level, Garcia noted that 82 positions each for governor and vice governor, as well as 792 provincial board member seats, will be contested.
For city offices, there are 149 positions each for mayor and vice mayor, along with 1,682 city council seats available, he said.
The municipal elections will open 1,493 seats each for mayor and vice mayor, and 11,948 councilor positions.
The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao will also have its elections.
Some 80 seats in the BARMM regional parliament will be contested. These include 40 seats for party representatives, 32 for district representatives, and eight for sectoral representatives.
Candidates may file their certificates of candidacy from October 1 to 8.
Garcia earlier said that the commission is eyeing the start of ballot printing for the 2025 midterm elections by December, following the timeline for the filing of certificates of candidacy this October.
“Hopefully, we can start printing by the second week of December since there will no longer be any candidate substitutions. Once the candidacy is filed from October 1-8, changes can only occur if the candidate dies or is disqualified,” Comelec Chairman George Garcia said in Filipino in an interview last week.
According to the commissioner, the earlier filing of candidacies is meant to allow the Comelec to print the ballots earlier as well.
In automated elections, the names of the candidates are already printed, unlike in manual elections where voters write the names of the candidates.
