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Friday, March 19, 2004
37% hike in voters ‘alarming’
By CHARMAINE Y. RODRIGUEZ
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
THE camp of congressional candidate Aristotle Batuhan has expressed alarm that the number of registered voters in Cebu City’s south district has increased by 37 percent.
In a partial check of the voters list, Batuhan’s ally, Cerecio “Nonoy” Mapula, said they also found 438 names that either were of dead persons or appeared twice or thrice in the list.
“This is very alarming,” Mapula said in yesterday’s gathering intended for the signing of the Compact for Peaceful Elections at the Eduardo Aboitiz Development Studies Center.
After the deadline for the validation of voters records in December 2003, Mapula said the number increased from about 190,000 to more than 260,000.
A growth of about 70,000 is “improbable,” Mapula said.
However, Commission on Elections (Comelec) 7 Regional Attorney Marshall Rubia said there is no cause for alarm because they are yet to “cleanse” the list of voters in Cebu City’s south district once the records, which were submitted to Comelec Manila for a poll protest in 2001, arrive next week.
“There are still remedies available under the law,” Rubia assured Mapula.
‘Serious fraud’
In a talk after the activity, he also told Mapula that even on election day, their watchers can still check the list and make sure that each person there votes only once.
The local Comelec expects to receive on March 23 the voters’ registration records (VRRs) of Cebu City’s south district from the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal in Manila, which decided in favor of Rep. Antonio Cuenco (Cebu City, south) in the protest filed by Batuhan.
HRET also found proof of “serious fraud and irregularities” after canvassing results in 22 precincts in the district during the last elections.
Rubia promised Mapula that he will discuss the matter with Comelec 7 Director Salud Aliganga and Acting Provincial Election Supervisor and Cebu City Election Officer Edwin Cadungog (south district) so they can find other remedies.
Comelec can no longer automatically remove any name from the list since the period for the filing of petitions for exclusion of voters already lapsed last Jan. 30.
Cebu City Election Officer Simaco Labata (north district) explained that they are allowed to make annotations in the voters’ list so the board of election inspectors would know that the names on the list belong to dead persons or have appeared more than once.
Rubia admitted that these happen since there are “multiple registrants” and the names of those who failed to vote twice are not removed right away.
(March 19, 2004 issue)
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