Benipayo tells disenfranchised youth: Urge voters to vote wisely

Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Alfredo Benipayo asked yesterday some 4.5 million disenfranchised youth to lead an information drive to make voters choose wisely in the May 14 congressional and local elections.

Benipayo said that instead of picketing the Comelec offices, the youth who failed to register during last year’s continuing registration of voters should start persuading their relatives and friends to vote only for candidates with unquestionable integrity.

This way, Benipayo said, the youth can make a greater contribution by elevating the awareness of Filipino voters and volunteering to ensure honest, orderly and peaceful elections.

"They can help instead by going on an information drive to educate their relatives about candidates," Benipayo said, adding that that would be more productive than staging rallies protesting their disenfranchisement because of the Comelec’s failure to implement an effective information drive.

"Since they can’t vote in the May 14 election, they may influence their families and friends on who should not be elected to public office," he said.

He said he sympathized with first-time voters who could not be accommodated in a special registration because the list-up was not legally and operationally feasible.

The Comelec said a special registration would be unlawful since a law prohibits registration of voters with 120 days of any election.

Benipayo had also claimed that there was not enough time to conduct a special list-up without postponing the polls to June 4.

He explained that he and six commissioners of the poll body were not against a special list-up but the Comelec should be given enough time to prepare for the election by resetting the May 14 polls.

"We were not against a special registration and we respect the rights of disfranchised voters but we should be given time if we conduct this activity," he said.

The Senate, however, rejected the proposal to postpone the polls and effectively blocked the passage of a law that would enable the Comelec to conduct the list-up.

However, youth organizations said they would pursue a pending petition in the Supreme Court (SC) asking that the Comelec be ordered to conduct a special list-up.

Malacañang is supporting the youth’s petition with no less than Solicitor General Simeon Marcelo and presidential chief legal counsel Avelino Cruz providing legal support to the youth’s lawyer.

The SC is set to take the youth groups’ consolidated petition during its weekly en banc session tomorrow in Baguio City where the high court is holding its annual summer session.

Benipayo has threatened to resign if the SC rules in favor of the youth petitions.