ARMM assembly to pass resolution on new voter registration

MANILA, Philippines—The first item on the agenda of the Autonomous Region in  Muslim Mindanao’s caretaker legislative assembly is to pass a resolution asking the Commission on Elections for a general re-registration of voters in the area, notorious for electoral fraud, the region’s top official said Tuesday.

President Benigno Aquino III and Mujiv Hataman. Malacañang photo

Mujiv Hataman, the ARMM’s officer-in-charge, said the caretaker regional government put in place by the Aquino administration wants to do away with the widespread perception that the ARMM was the country’s cheating capital during elections.

Hataman made the statement weeks after the Comelec announced there was not enough time to conduct a re-registration of voters in all five provinces that make up the ARMM in time for the 2013 mid-term elections.

“By Thursday, the first agenda of the nine members of the) regional legislative assembly that just took their oath is to pass a resolution calling, requesting the Comelec to conduct the general registration in ARMM,” Hataman said in Malacañang.

“I’m also being called by the Senate. They have a committee hearing this coming Friday under the committee of Senator Koko Pimentel on the probability of a general registration,” he added.

The newly appointed members of the regional legislative assembly took their oath before President Benigno Aquino in Malacañang on Tuesday morning.