Comelec to registrants: Plan your schedule

CEBU, Philippines - The Commission on Election is reminding all those who will be registering in time for the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections to take note of the dates for registration which will only run for a few days.

Ferdinand Gujilde of the Office of the Provincial Election Supervisor said they are starting preliminary preparations for the registration of voters this coming July 22 to 30.

Based on a memorandum from Comelec Manila, election offices have been tasked to make an inventory of registration forms that will be used by new and transferee voters.

With lesser time to register compared to the national elections, Gujilde said they hope the registrants themselves will maximize the time well so there will be no need to extend registration dates.

"It's a fact of Filipino culture. Unya basulon ang Comelec," said Gujilde, pertaining to late registrants or those who wait for the last day before they head to Comelec offices to register.

Gujilde added that if there is a need seen by the Comelec en banc for the extension of the registration, it might happen. Although they hope that it would not reach that.

"I hope dili nata maabot sa inana na mangayo pa ta og extension. Dapat the first day palang naa na ta."

While the suggestion to use the Precinct Count Optical Scan machines has been raised, Gujilde said this will be highly be unlikely considering that the PCOS machines would not be that useful in the barangay election since the manual election would not need transmission.

He explained that the manual election process would only include counting of votes by the Barangay Board of Canvassers who can even proclaim winners within 24 hours.

With this, he said that they will be empowering the BBOC soon for their responsibilities on the election this October.

Also, he said lines in polling precincts during the October 28 elections should not be that long since there will be no clustering compared to the national elections.

This means there would only be around 200 voters in one polling precinct compared to the national elections which have at least 1,000 voters in each precinct. — (FREEMAN)