BACOLOD City Vice Mayor El Cid Familiaran has urged the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to hire more personnel to decongest the long queue of registrants in University of St. La Salle (USLS).
Familiaran, chairman of Bacolod Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF), said Monday, September 27, that Comelec should have more manpower.
The commission, he said, should also conduct a satellite voter registration in the barangays.
Hundreds of registrants were seen Monday in a long queue of the voter registration at the USLS, but Comelec can only accommodate 500 registrants for walk-in and 150 for those who are in the priority lane.
On Saturday, hundreds of registrants also gathered outside the SM City Mall for the satellite voter registration and failed to observe the minimum health protocols like curfew and social distancing.
The voter registration at the USLS will end on September 30.
Familiaran said the Comelec can hold a satellite voter registration in the barangays to avoid the long queue of the registrants.
"We are still under general community quarantine with heightened restrictions so we need to avoid mass gathering because our Covid-19 cases also continue to increase," he said.
He added it has been observed that most of the registrants were violating the social distancing as well as the curfew hours.
Familiaran noted that policemen and the Task Force Disiplina were also deployed to assist the Comelec to strictly enforce the social distancing.
Bacolod City Police Office (BCPO) Director Colonel Manuel Placido earlier ordered all police station commanders to strictly enforce the daily curfew hours in the city from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m.
Placido said policemen should conduct a roving patrol within their areas of jurisdiction to penalize curfew violators.
He said the police should issue citation tickets to the violators or reprimanded them.
"We understand that we don't have enough facilities for the violators, but the police should issue citation tickets to the curfew violators and advise them to go home," he added.