DESPITE the long hours of work that Commission on Elections (Comelec) personnel in Cebu City had put in, Vice Mayor Michael Rama was dismayed with their conduct of the registration.

Rama criticized the Comelec yesterday for being insensitive to the thousands of applicants who had to line up under the heat of the sun in the middle of the road.

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Although he did not mention names, he said the failure of some people to register can be blamed on the “system and attitude” of the organizers.

That some poll officials blamed the public for listing up at the last minute also did not sit well with the vice mayor.

In his news conference yesterday, Rama said that the Comelec central office should not just pay attention to “Imperial Manila” while it ignored the clamor for an extension of the registration deadline in Cebu and other provinces.

He was disappointed over the lack of initiative to transfer the registration of voters to a bigger venue and to augment the poll office staff, even when offices got overcrowded and some applicants were turned away.

“Comelec is a government agency and the job of government is to provide better services for all... They should go where the people are, kuwang ra gyud ang ilang registration. You cannot blame the people entirely, you should be looking at the institution,” Rama said yesterday.

He said that after the problems encountered in the registration in 2007, the local poll offices should have avoided the same problems this year.

“You must anticipate, be sensitive and don’t be apathetic... They don’t care for the people, the sensitivity is just not there,” he continued.

Rama also pointed out that he was the one who had to order the deployment of traffic enforcers and the setting up of tents to provide shade to the registrants.

While their office is not blameless, election officer for the north district lawyer Marchel Sarno, said they have also done some things to make up for their shortcomings.

Aside from their information dissemination on the continuing registration as early as November last year, they also conducted 15 satellite registrations in different barangays and schools, including one at the City Hall grounds.

They also extended their office hours to 9 p.m. and worked on Saturdays.

“If that is his complaint, we can also say that we did our job.

We did everything we thought was best in the conduct of the registration. We hoped the people registered early,” Sarno said.

In a phone interview yesterday, Sarno also said that the Comelec en banc resolution approved yesterday did not have any effect on the city’s poll offices, since they were able to complete the registration of all those who were given registration forms last Saturday.

The Comelec, in a resolution, extended until midnight yesterday the capturing of biometrics of voters who were able to register last Oct. 31 but did not complete the process.

While some poll offices saw only very few registrants who came back yesterday, others reported a “successful” registration last Saturday.

After the registration, the Comelec will now continue until the end of the month the validation of voter’s registration.

It will particularly cater to those who were not able to have their biometrics taken for the 2004 and 2007 elections.

There are still voters who were able to register in the past elections but did not complete the process, particularly on having their photos, thumbprints and other pertinent information taken, said Tessie Mercado of the Cebu City north district Comelec office.

Mercado said the validation is meant to prevent the double registration of voters.

Mercado said the number of voters has increased, with a total of 226,159 as of Oct. 17 compared to around 217,000 voters in the Oct. 2007 barangay elections.

The Comelec will also focus on the clustering of precincts.

Automation in the 2010 elections requires the Comelec to cluster four to five precincts or around 1,000 voters per machine.

To save on cost, however, Smartmatic-TIM and the Comelec grouped five precincts into one so that there will only be 80,136 clustered precincts

Meanwhile, Provincial Election Supervisor Lionel Marco Castillano said that he received a report yesterday that only a total of 20 registrants in Consolacion town were not able to continue the biometrics taking because they did not wait for their turn anymore.

He said that the Comelec office personnel in Consolacion waited for them to come back until 12 midnight and tried to contact them but to no avail.

Most of the towns finished the registration beyond 12 midnight, he said. He had received reports that the cities of Talisay and Lapu-Lapu finished the registration at 3 a.m. Sunday.

As of 4:15 p.m. yesterday, only two of the 500 to 700 qualified voters returned to the Lapu-Lapu City Comelec office to complete their registration, said election officer Ferdinand Gujilde.

In Mandaue, Election Officer Anna Fleur Gujilde reported a successful registration.

She urged parties who want to file complaints to do so from Nov. 9 to 16.

The Election Registration Board, which she will head with Local Civil Registrar Flaviana Basilgo and City Schools Superintendent Virginia Zapanta as members, will entertain the complaints.

There are 11,456 new voters in Mandaue city. This is an addition to the city’s 173,458 voters as of September.

Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on November 4, 2009.