Bongbong Marcos Included in 2022 Overseas Ballot: Comelec

Presidential aspirant Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. will be included in the overseas ballot for the 2022 elections, the Commission on Elections said Monday even as the poll body has yet to decide on all challenges to the candidacy of the son of the late dictator.

Comelec Director Elaiza Sabile David confirmed Marcos Jr.'s inclusion in the ballot face for voters abroad.

"The official list has already been finalized. Mayroon na tayong ballot face so his (Marcos) name is there [on the ballot for overseas voters]," David told reporters.

There are some 1.7 million registered overseas voters for the 2022 polls according to David.

The announcement came just hours after a division of the Comelec upheld the certificate of candidacy of Marcos Jr. Another division of the poll body has yet to release its decision on another petition seeking to disqualify Marcos Jr.

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The ballot for overseas voters is 25 inches long while the ballot for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao is the longest at 30 inches. Ballots for the rest of the Philippines were measured to be 26 inches long, said David.

The Comelec has yet to release the final list of candidates for the 2022 elections as it continues to resolve several petitions including challenges to the candidacy of Marcos Jr., the frontrunner in pre-election surveys.

The Comelec earlier dismissed a petition to declare Marcos as a nuisance candidate and another petition to cancel his certificate of candidacy alleging that he is only an impostor.