Comelec confident to reach registration target amid MECQ

By Joseph B.A. Marzan

Less than 100 days before the voters’ registration for the May 9, 2022 national and local elections ends on September 30, 2021, the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) in Iloilo City is confident to hit its target number of registrants amid the city’s Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ) status.

Data from the COMELEC Iloilo City indicated that as of March 31, the city now has 303,648 registered voters, including more than 10,000 new registrations for the 2022 polls.

The figure excludes 2,233 registrations between April 1 and May 23 that are yet to be approved by COMELEC-Iloilo City’s Election Registration Board (ERB). The board will convene on July 3 to deliberate on these registrants.

COMELEC Iloilo City Election Assistant II Jonathan Sayno told Daily Guardian on Tuesday that the city election office “wasn’t able to prepare for the MECQ” as they abruptly closed after May 23.

COMELEC Resolution No. 10674 issued on Aug. 12, 2020 mandates the suspension of voter registration activities in areas under ECQ or MECQ. The enlistment will only resume when the quarantine status is downgraded to the more lenient General CQ (GCQ) or Modified MGCQ (MGCQ).

While the online iRehistro appointment system has continued collecting registrations, the city COMELEC office at the Iloilo Terminal Market has also been collecting contact numbers of those who had booked their schedules. The poll office will then call or message them when the registration resumes.

Sayno said the city polling office hopes they could resume voter’s registration by July 1, after which they could also start satellite registration activities in various barangays across the city until the deadline.

He said new voters were enlisted at their office, not via satellite registration activities.

“We weren’t able to prepare [for the MECQ], but I think we can reach our 6 percent target by September 30, because we plan to go to the barangays. We suspended this because of the COVID cases in barangays. If we can go back to a lower classification by July 1, we can resume voter’s registration by then and we can also conduct satellite registrations every Saturday. So, we are confident that we can reach our target despite of these limitations,” Sayno said.

He added that “there was still a lot of time” to reach the 17,000 target registrants and that the COMELEC central office in Manila already provided multiple satellite registrations in one day which they hope could also be implemented in the city.

This, despite Section 10 of Republic Act No. 8189 mandating that applications for voter registration must be “accomplished in the presence of the Election Officer”.

“We haven’t reached the 17,000 target, although there is still a lot of time, because we are still going to the malls which have been offering us to conduct voter’s registration there. Also, we’ve been allowed to conduct multiple satellite registrations in one day instead of having just one venue, so we have sent a letter to Manila to ask that we be allowed to do that,” he added.

Those who wish to register can still fill out registrations at the COMELEC’s iRehistro system, which had been the single basis for registrations prior to the MECQ.

While the COMELEC main office had launched the Mobile Registration Form Application for mobile phones last June 15, Iloilo City was not included in the pilot testing areas.

Sayno said that while they are also making other preparations for the 2022 polls, voter registration “was of primary importance” to them, as the voter rolls would be the basis for the number of ballots to be printed.

He added that if the MECQ would be prolonged, they would still have to wait for guidelines from the national office.

“If MECQ is prolonged, COMELEC Iloilo City office will have to wait from guidelines from Manila because they are the ones enforcing, and we cannot directly comment on what the protocols are. The main office is monitoring happenings in cities and municipalities, so they will be able to weigh in,” he said.