The COMELEC website provides the following dates based on the Omnibus Election Code and other election laws: Nov. 30, 2006 onwards – party conventions (to select and announce candidates)
Jan. 14, 2007 to June 17, 2007 – Election Period, for purposes of enforcing the following prohibitions: alteration of territory, precinct; bearing or carrying of firearms in public places; suspension of elective local officials (so maybe oppositionist-mayors have to survive until Jan.14 at which time it is already prohibited to suspend them); transfer of officers and employees in the civil service; organization of reaction forces, etc.; use of armed security personnel by candidates. Jan. 15, 2007 to Feb. 12, 2007 – Period to file candidacy for Senators; period to file manifestation of intent to participate in party list elections
Jan. 15, 2007 to March 29, 2007 – Period to file candidacy for local elective position Feb. 13, 2007 to May 12, 2007 – Campaign period for Senatorial elections and party list
March 30, 2007 to May 12, 2007 – Campaign period for elections of members of House of Reps and for provincial, city, and municipal offices. May 14, 2007 – Election day. The calendar of the House of Representatives based on newspaper account is: Oct. 14 – Break.
Nov. 6 – resume session
Dec. 21 – Christmas break
Rep. Boy Nograles in an interview (Inq7.net) said : “In our last day of session, we’re willing to stop the clock and extend until the wee hours to get this (chacha) done so when we come back in November we can call for a constitutional assembly.” Elsewhere however Speaker de Venecia said they would wait until the Supreme Court justices resolve the so-called people’s initiative case. (The deadline of the memos in that case is, I think, Oct. 10. Supreme Court can calendar it for en banc, at the earliest, in a week or two after Oct. 10, and release its decision, at the earliest, right after en banc.)
If the Supreme Court is inordinately fast, i.e., if the Supreme Court schedules an en banc within 3 days from the case being submitted for resolution and releases its decision at the en banc (3 days after Oct. 10), then Boy Nograles’s calculation is good, that they can stop the clock on their last day, Oct. 14. But that would be inordinately, unusually, uncharacteristically, uncalled-for, unduly, extraordinarily fast (I must have committed a grammatical error in that series ) on the part of the Supreme Court. Or the House can just choose not to wait.
