Comelec sets Baguio gov't offices for poll listing

By Liza Agoot  

BAGUIO CITY-- The Commission on Elections will bring off-site voter’s registration to government offices to allow workers to be listed and make them eligible to vote for the next presidential polls.

Lawyer John Paul Martin, Baguio election supervisor, said on Monday they found out that in the city, there are more than 400 employees whose voter registrations are inactive or they have not voted for two consecutive elections or more.

The city government has around 1,600 regular, contractual, job orders and elected employees.

In 2019, Martin said the Comelec has removed from the list around 30,000 inactive voters.

He said the inactive voters were discovered during the voter’s special registration in 2019 when they were trying to register members of the indigenous peoples.

“The majority of them are not active voters. Maybe they are afraid that politicians will discover that they did not vote for them, which is not possible because even I do not know whom voters vote for,” Martin said in the Ilokano dialect.

He said employees probably opt to be neutral by not casting their votes, which is not good precedence.

“Ang pangit tingnan na tayo sa gobyerno kinakampanya natin ang pagbabago sa gobyerno, hindi pala rehistrado, not a voter. Ano naman daw ang credibility mo na empleyado kung ganun? (It doesn't look good that we in government who are campaigning for change are not registered voters. How can you be a credible campaigner if that is the case?),” Martin said.

During the 20 months voters’ registration from January 20 to Sept. 30, 2021, the Comelec-Baguio will do off-site registration in all government agencies and offices to encourage the voters to register and be eligible to vote.

He said there will also be off-site registration in malls, schools, parishes, barangays, organizations, associations, police offices, and the Philippine Military Academy.

“If they cannot come to us because they do not have the time, we will go to them. We have enough time to bring the registration to everybody,” Martin said.

He said they hope to bring back the 30,000 voters removed from the list and capture the 2-percent increment increase from young people who turned or are turning 18.

Baguio has 141,000 voters after the delisting of 30,000 and registration of about new 5,000 voters in 2019.

On the first day of voter registration on January 20, there were 122 people who registered.

The number of registrants is expected to increase with the off-site registration. (PNA)