DAVAO City, Philippines—Maguindanao Governor Esmael Mangudadatu has called on President Aquino to order the Commission on Elections to invalidate the general list of voters in Maguindanao.
Mangudadatu recently told reporters here that invalidating the general list of voters in the province would pave the way for a new registration of voters.
He said this would be the most appropriate solution to the perennial problem of ghost or flying voters in the province, which was tagged in the 2004 and 2007 poll fraud scandals.
Maguindanao was among Mindanao provinces that delivered solid votes for then presidential candidate Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Her closest rival, Fernando Poe Jr., who was very popular among Maguindanaons, got an insignificant number of votes.
In 2007, several senatorial candidates also got no votes at all in the province, then run by Andal Ampatuan Sr.
Former Maguindanao election supervisor Lintang Bedol has said that the election results in the province had been rigged.
“About 40 to 60 percent of the current number of registered voters in the province are either ghost voters or double registrants,” Mangudadatu said.
He said it was worthless to just rant about the situation and that a radical move should be made.
“So I am challenging the P-Noy (Aquino) administration to (invalidate) all registrations and make a new one,” Mangudadatu said.
Mangudadatu said he had formalized his position in a letter he recently submitted to Malacañang.
He said the cancellation of the voters’ lists in Maguindanao would not disenfranchise legitimate voters because they can always participate in a general list-up that the Comelec would have to conduct.
“Makakahabol pa sa (They can still register for the) next elections,” Mangudadatu said.
He said that based on a study, the general list-up in the province, with an estimated 600,000 eligible voters, would cost about P25 million.
Mangudadatu said the fund could be drawn from the P1.6 billion set aside for the stalled regional elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.