MASANTOL -- The Commission on Election (Comelec) here has been doing their part to lessen the number of registered voters who do not have biometrics by conducting satellite registration.
From the 12,000 voters who do not have biometrics, the agency has been able to trim down the number to 5,000 since they administered the out-of-the-office registration.
"Kami na mismo pumupunta, dinadala namin yung mga computers namin. Alam mo naman kasi ang mga Filipino, hangga't 'di mo ire-reach out, wala talaga," said Masantol Comelec Acting Election Officer Vivia Paguyo.
The Comelec has finished rotating all the barangays in the country and is now at their second rounds. They are setting up their offices in the schools of barangay offices.
"As much as we could, we really need to finish this before election comes. Hinahanap talaga namin yung mga nasa listahan namin," said Paguyo.
Aside from verifying the voter's biometrics, satellite registration also aims to encourage people to register to be able to vote this coming election.
"Marami naman nagreregister, lalo na nung unang ikot namin. Karamihan kabataan," Paguyo shared.
The project is also intended to lessen the volume of people who do last minute registration, said Paguyo.
Failure to vote twice
Another move the agency is doing is implementing Resolution 9567 otherwise known as the 'failure to vote twice'.
From the 36,000 registered voters in 2013, they were reduced by 11,000 due to failure to vote for two consecutive elections.
"Marami mga voters yung nade-activate kasi di ba nung 2013 dalawa yung election natin, national at local. So two consecutive na yun," Paguyo said.
This resolution is also preventing "flying voters", especially the use of the name of a dead person, due to the immediate deactivation of registration.
Delayed voter's ID
The Comelec also answered the questions about the delayed release of the identification card issued by them.
The COMELEC said the reason behind gradual processing of the IDs is the Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) where they compare every fingerprint to all the registered voters in the country.
"This is to prevent yung mga dobleng rehistro at mga pangalan. Tsini-check talaga yan lahat," Paguyo shared.
This is also the reason why voter's ID is one of the valid IDs accepted by government agencies and banks, according to Paguyo.
The agency also asserted that even without their IDs, voters can still practice their rights as long as they completed their biometrics.
Manual versus automated voting
As of now, the Comelec is still undecided if they will return to manual election of pursue the automated and use Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machine.
"As of now, wala pang announcement mula sa taas, but we wish i-retain nalang yung automated election kasi based from our experience mas malinis ito," Paguyo said.
Paguyo said there is no means of cheating in PCOS machines because "the moment they send data to us, nase-send din yun sa national office."
"If you will just dig down the process, you will see that it is really the right way to have a clean election," she added.