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MANILA - The Commission on Elections looks to resolve the pending cases against presidential aspirants by December 15, its spokesperson said Monday.

The Comelec is also "pretty confident" it will be able to release the final list of candidates for the 2022 elections this week, "hopefully on the 15th, but give or take a few days," said Director James Jimenez.

"There is an effort to resolve these cases expeditiously. I wouldn’t go so far as to say December 15 is a hard deadline, but that is the expectation that we’ve set for ourselves. So yes, they are really working to meet it. In fact, we expect that we will in fact meet it," Jimenez told ANC's Headstart.

He said concerns raised by former Comelec chairman Christian Monsod regarding the repercussions should the poll body delay its verdict particularly on the cases against former senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., make sense, and the agency is indeed working with timeliness in mind.

• What if he wins? Ex-poll chief Monsod says Marcos DQ case must be decided soon

"I would have hoped that a former chairman would understand that the commission is working on this with full knowledge of the consequences of the timing of the result, of the outcome. The Comelec is working on these petitions, the Comelec will make a ruling in the proper time," he said.

Nine petitions are pending against Marcos, who is running for president. These include separate petitions for the cancelation of his certificate of candidacy, for his disqualification from the race, and to declare him a nuisance candidate.

• Comelec urged to cancel Marcos Jr.'s presidential bid over tax evasion conviction
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• Marcos Jr.'s camp says disqualification petition a 'predictable nuisance'

The Comelec director explained that if the eventual winner's COC is canceled after the elections, one possibility is the second-place winner making a case to assume the position, arguing that the votes received by the candidate should have been considered stray.

On the disqualification case, if it is resolved after the elections, the "constitutionally designated successor" would have to ascend to the position because the election results would have to stay, said Jimenez.

Another difference between the two is if resolved before election day, substitution can be done in case of the disqualified candidate, but not in the one whose COC is canceled.

A petition for nuisance candidate, which he said is "unlikely to drag until election day," would yield almost the same effect as the cancelation COC, where it would result in the candidacy being treated as not filed.

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