MANILA — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Tuesday said the beginning of the election period for the Oct. 30 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) polls was a "blockbuster," as thousands of hopefuls turned in their certificates of candidacy (COC) on the first day of filing Monday.

"Blockbuster! We were so overwhelmed," Comelec chair George Garcia told reporters on Tuesday.

Comelec figures showed that a total of 273,454 aspirants filed their COCs in a bid to secure one of the 672,000 available seats in the Philippines' 42,000 barangays.

Of the number, 21,657 filed for the position of barangay chair while 143,638 were running for sangguniang barangay member.

Some 17,085 others filed candidacies for SK chairmanship, while 91,074 others were gunning for a post in the SK council.

Garcia had said that save for a couple of incidents, the start of the election period had been "peaceful."

• Momentum spikes as election period, gun ban for barangay polls begin

Four incidents of election-related violence have been recorded so far, including the murder of Alex Repanto, the chairman of Barangay San Jose in Libon, Albay. Other incidents were recorded in Rizal and Maguindanao, Garcia said.

• Punong barangay sa Libon, Albay, patay sa pamamaril

In Metro Manila, police confiscated 6 firearms and 17 deadly weapons as the election gun ban continued to be in force. Most of the weapons were recovered during checkpoint operations.

Ten persons were also arrested for various offenses in connection with the election period, police also reported.

—With reports from Raffy Cabristante and Willard Cheng, ABS-CBN News

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