MASBATE CITY (PIA) -- Eight days after a tricycle driver running for village councilor in this city was gunned down, the next grassroots leaders will be decided by registered voters as they make their choices for barangay officials known on the ballot on October 30, Monday.

Will the slain Juvy Pintor’s election bid expire with him?

“His wife can substitute for him,” said lawyer Maria Juana S. Valeza, Commission on Elections’ director for the Bicol region.

Thus, if Pintor wins, his wife Josephine Pintor can get the slain candidate’s seat in his stead.

According to Valeza, the poll body only allows a wife or husband to substitute a candidate who died or was disqualified by final judgment.

“The Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections are apolitical. Therefore, there are no political parties that can make substitutions,” she said on a live streamed interview. 

Valeza noted that the spouse-only substitution for barangay candidates was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2003. 

To ensure that only rightful substitutes can replace the barangay candidates, Valeza said the Comelec had required them to identify their spouses in their certificates of candidacy. 

The rule, however, does not apply to SK.

The Comelec regional director said that the substitution is not allowed among the youth aspirants.

An opponent shot dead Pintor as he pacified a rumble between rivaling groups of candidates in Barangay Mayngaran, Masbate City Sunday afternoon. (PIA5/Masbate)