By Joseph B.A. Marzan
Exactly 362 days to the 2022 national and local elections and 141 days before voter registration closes, the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) in Iloilo City hopes to entice more eligible voters to enlist as it kicks off its satellite registration activities this month.
Latest data from the Iloilo City COMELEC as of March 31, 2021 indicated that the city has 303,648 registered voters, which includes those who registered for the 2019 and 2022 election cycles.
Election Assistant II Jonathan Sayno told Daily Guardian on Monday that they were already nearing their target of 20,000 new voters, based on data from iRehistro voter registration appointment system and contact tracing logs.
Sayno said the COMELEC national office in Manila issued a memorandum directing them to return to their regular six-day voter registration schedule.
Under the new schedule, voter registration will be conducted for four days at their office on the second floor of the Iloilo Terminal Market, and the remaining two days, including Saturday, are for satellite registration activities to be scheduled in different barangays.
But the memorandum also said that barangays where satellite registrations would be conducted must have no coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases for 10 days prior to the scheduled registration activity.
“Here in Iloilo City, we’re about to reach our target of 20,000 new voters here in our office. The central office handed us a memorandum which indicated that our registration would return to a Monday to Saturday schedule. We are required to conduct Saturday registration in barangays, with a maximum of two satellite registrations per week,” Sayno said.
For the present registration cycle, the COMELEC previously opted for a Tuesday to Saturday schedule due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but returned to the Monday to Thursday schedule in March when COVID-19 cases shot up.
Sayno said the local election office is currently coordinating with local government officials in the city and barangay levels to ensure safe registration activities.
Sayno added that their current focus is on voter registration and other election-related undertakings, like the filing of candidacies for elective positions in October, will have to depend on mandates from the national office.
The plebiscite to divide Palawan into three provinces conducted last March 13, was a “litmus test” for how the COMELEC would conduct the upcoming elections amid the pandemic.
Sayno said the COMELEC may also be open to having precincts in hospitals for medical frontliners and confined COVID-19 patients but it will depend on the direction by the national office.
“Our laws do not prohibit those who are sick at the hospital from voting, because the right to suffrage is one of the highest rights, that the people must not be disenfranchised unless prohibited by law, but that would also still depend on what the national office would say,” he said.
Meanwhile, the COMELEC Iloilo City office is still entertaining appointments up to 5:00 p.m., and is already allowing walk-in registration but only until 4:00 p.m.
Voter registration will close on September 30, 2021.
