The WVSU Journal for Law Advocacy (JLA) is an academic journal committed to the development of legal scholarship for and from the Visayas Region and Southern Philippines. The student-run editorial board adheres to a double-blind peer review process as its editorial policy to determine the quality of submission both from law students and legal practitioners.
JLA’s inaugural issue carries the theme “Electoral Laws and the 2022 Philippine Election” and contains seven carefully selected chapters that provide important legal analyses of electoral issues that limit, if not hostage, the conduct of free and fair elections in the Philippines. In preparation of the journal’s official launch by September 23rd 2022, online versions of the seven stand-alone chapters will be shared to the reading public. For this week, JLA is featuring the co-authored chapter of Prosecutor Victoria Heler and Theda Grace Gumban, faculty and student respectively of WVSU College of Law.
Entitled “Towards a Clean and Honest Election: Jurisprudence on Election-related offenses”, the authors revisit important provisions of the Omnibus Election Code of the Philippines and provide a discussion on frequent election violations and related jurisprudence. This includes vote-buying and vote-selling, conspiracy to bribe voters, wagering upon the result of the election, and coercion of subordinates among others. The authors provide a thematic discussion of offenses during voter registration, campaign, voting day, and canvassing.
Heler and Gumban also provide a rundown of special laws that govern the conduct of elections in the country and argue that while these laws are designed to ensure a peaceful and effective method of selecting political leaders, these laws have to face challenges arising from COVID-19 and disinformation networks in social media.
The student editors, as well as contributing authors of this inaugural issue, hope that readers arrive at a more complete picture of the interplay of law, jurisprudence, and electoral reform in the Philippines. The different chapters of this volume earnestly put together provide at the very least, a diagnosis of each of the key areas of reform in the Philippine electoral system. For inquiries, please email the Journal’s Executive Editor – Clyde Gacayan at [email protected]
