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Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Poll office finds initial defects in signatures
By Linette C. Ramos
With Jeanette P. Malinao
CEBU CITY -- Questionable signatures and multiple signatories are just among the discrepancies the Cebu City poll offices encountered Monday when they started verifying some 50,000 signatures gathered in the people's initiative campaign.
Cebu City north district election officer Simaco Labata said that with limited manpower, the verification process could last up to a month.
For the north district alone, only 11 election assistants are manually checking the nearly 30,000 signatures gathered in 45 barangays.
Nine others are doing the task in the south district office, where 19,585 signatures were gathered.
As of Monday, 20 election assistants verified a total of 2,319 signatures. Of the number, 472 are from Barangays San Jose and Parian in the north district while the rest are from the south district.
Of the people's initiative forms that have been checked so far, election assistants noted signatures that did not match those in the voter's registration records. In some forms, there are two to three different names that bear the same signature.
Some signatories are also no longer considered registered voters since their names were stricken off the 2004 voters’ registration records for failing to vote in two consecutive elections.
"There are signatures in the forms that are not the same with our records but we will not say they were forged because it's also possible they have two different signatures. Those that do not match our records and those who signed for another individual will not be counted," Labata said.
An election assistant said some signatures appear to be falsified since these follow different strokes, which do not match those in the Commission on Elections (Comelec) records.
Meanwhile, the Comelec Cebu Provincial Office received two more requests for copies of the voters' registration records Monday afternoon.
Comelec Provincial Supervisor Edwin Cadungog said they will release the provincial voters' files of Pinamungajan and Malabuyoc this morning, when the two field offices submit certifications that their own files are not available.
Field offices in Cebu Province will have to use the provincial files in signature verification because their own records are with the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, where Loren Legarda's electoral protest against Vice President Noli de Castro is pending.
Earlier, Liloan, Boljoon and the cities of Toledo and Mandaue also received the signatures and requested for the files.
Cadungog said he has yet to receive feedback on how his field offices have been doing regarding their verification.
The Arroyo administration is pushing for amending the 1987 Constitution through a people’s initiative.
Charter change proponents want, among others, a shift of government from a bicameral presidential to unicameral parliamentary form.
A people’s initiative is allowed “upon a petition of at least 12 percent of the total number of registered voters, of which every legislative district must be represented by at least three percent of the registered voters therein.”
This means that for a precinct with 200 registered voters, six signatures are needed.
The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Cebu City office, on the other hand, submitted the people's initiative forms to the Comelec last Friday, for verification.
Labata said the signatures are being checked manually with the aid of a magnifying lens, and since they have no gadgets to check the authenticity of the signatures, they could not tell whether these were forged.
With the slow pace of the verification process, Labata and election officer for the south district Marchel Sarno said they could not tell yet whether the three percent of the total number of voters in their district needed can be met to pass the Charter change initiative for a referendum.
In the south district, Sarno said some signatures can't be verified since only their thumb marks appear in the voter's registration records.
He shared Labata's observation that some signatures do not match those that appear in the voters' registration records.
"It's either the signatures were falsified or they don't match simply because a different signature was used, considering some individuals have two signatures. If they don't match, we won't count them," Sarno said.
Once they finish with the verification, Labata said he will prepare a report on the result of the verification, which will be sent to the Comelec central office.
Among other things, the report will include the total number of signatures verified, the number of signatures that appear to be similar to their records, the number of signatures that do not match and the number of signatories that are no longer considered registered voters.
The people's initiative forms will be returned to DILG with annotations on the verification results. (Sun.Star Cebu)
(April 11, 2006 issue)
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