Comelec to Rama: No extension of voter registration

THE Commission on Election (Comelec) has noted a high turn out of voter registrants for the Barangay and Sanguniang Kabataan elections in October since it opened last Monday.

The Comelec will continue to receive registrants even during this weekend.

To accomodate the high turn-out, Mayor Michael Rama tried to convince the Comelec in Manila to extend the voter registration beyond July 31.

But so far, the Comelec has rejected his request. It had earlier announced that the July 31 deadline is not extendible.

The provincial Comelec has processed 29,000 new voters for the barangay polls and another 30,000 for the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) as of Thursday. The registration started last Monday and is scheduled to end on July 31.

In Cebu City, the Comelec offices in the north and south districts are swamped by regular registrants and young people aged 15- 17 years old who can vote for the SK. It has been processing at least 1,200 new voters per day since Monday.

Provincial election officer Ferdinand Gujilde said they expect the number of registrants to increase as the July 31 deadline nears.

“From the start, we can say that every single day of the registration period looked like the last day of the registration in the past. There are a lot of people coming in,” he told reporters yesterday.

Last Monday, a glass wall in the Comelec office in Cebu City was broken from the press of people wanting to register for the Barangay and SK polls.

Hakot rampant

The practice of officials bringing in voters who reside in other barangays or “hakot” is still rampant, said Gujilde.

But Comelec, he said, cannot investigate on the declared residence of the voters because their power is plainly “ministerial.”

As long as the registrant conforms to all the requirements, “we will accept. We do not inquire into the substance whether it is true,” he added./Peter L. Romanillos and Edison Delos Angeles