MANILA, Philippines — House of Representatives Speaker Lord Allan Velasco has lauded the Commission on Elections (Comelec) after it decided to extend the voters’ registration period from October 11 to 31.
According to Velasco, the Comelec’s decision is a welcome move especially as officials fear that voters may be disenfranchised if they cannot register because of the limitations brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The voters’ registration period was set to end on Thursday, September 30, had Comelec refused to extend it.
“We thank the Comelec for seeing the wisdom of extending the voter registration to allow more Filipinos to exercise their right of suffrage, which is one of the most important rights and responsibilities we have as citizens of the Philippines,” Velasco said.
Comelec’s decision came after the House of Representatives passed a bill that sought to extend the registration period, 30 days after the law takes effect. The Senate vowed to use the House version for its counterpart bill.
Velasco, a strong advocate of the extension, said that he hopes Comelec would use this to garner more voters for the 2022 national elections — especially since a lot of people were not able to register due to the restrictions placed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Speaker said that there may be around 12 million unregistered voters, because Comelec said that there are around 61 million registered voters, compared to the projection from the Philippine Statistics Authority that there are 73 million Filipinos qualified to vote in the upcoming polls.
“Again, we hope the Comelec will use the extension to ramp up voter registration and ensure that more people can vote next year because we cannot afford to disenfranchise Filipino voters,” he said.