Manila barangay execs sue flying voters, mostly from Navotas
Two barangay officials in Binondo, Manila, filed a complaint on Monday in the City Prosecutor’s Office against 161 flying voters, most of them from Navotas City.
In a statement, Barangay 269 Chairperson Domingo Vacal and Councilor Ramon Cheng said that those charged with violating the Omnibus Election Code had claimed to be residents of the Galvan and Zosima buildings in Binondo.
However, Vacal and Cheng said the 161 respondents “never occupied nor resided in any of these buildings.” Instead, they were mostly residents of Barangay North Bay Boulevard in Navotas City, according to an investigation conducted by the police.
“As the barangay chairman of Barangay 269, I practically know everybody in our place since it is just a small barangay and I can affirm that these respondents are flying voters as they had never resided nor occupied any of the rooms in Zosima and/or Galvan buildings,” Vacal said, adding that he himself was a resident of Zosima building.
Results of CIDG probe
According to the statement, the real occupants of the buildings testified in a separate probe conducted by the Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in December 2017 that the 161 people were not their tenants.
Romulo Macalintal, the lawyer of the two barangay officials, said the result of the CIDG’s probe showed that the “respondents [had] never been residents of Galvan and Zosima buildings nor even became boarders of the same [and] that a group with [a] political purpose facilitated, influenced or even financed these persons for their own benefit [and even] considered [them] as flying voters [who] could be utilized in the forthcoming barangay election.”
Last week, Macalintal also exposed 1,458 flying voters in Pasay City, who gave fake addresses, including a station of the Light Rail Transit Line 1.
Initially set in May, the barangay elections may be postponed after the House committee on suffrage voted on Monday to postpone it and the Sangguniang Kabataan polls to Oct. 8.
