November 4, 2009, 5:45pm
A day after announcing that it will let the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to decide whether or not to extend the registration of voters for the 2010 local and national elections, Malacañang Wednesday advised the poll body to consider the public need on the issue.This as a party-list lawmaker said it is the Supreme Court, not the Comelec, which has the final say on the deadline of voters’ registration.
Kabataan Party Rep. Raymond Palatino said he expects the High Court to rule on their petition filed last week questioning the legality of the October 31 registration deadline set by the Comelec, citing that Republic Act 8189 or the Voters Registration Act of 1996 which mandates continuing registration daily until 120 days prior to elections.
Following intense public clamor for an extension of voters’ registration, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita Wednesday said they will seek consultation with the poll body to address the issue.
“We will have to consult with the Comelec because it is their thing. We cannot dictate upon the Comelec,” he said in his weekly press briefing.
“If there is a need, they should be sensitive,” he said, amid reports that thousands of people have lost their right to vote in May 2001 general elections, with some camps arguing that Comelec did not have enough registration centers to accommodate registrants.
Comelec Chairman Jose A. R. Melo on Tuesday stood firm in the poll body’s decision not to extend the registration of voters, saying they needed ample time to prepare for the automated elections.
Ermita also appealed to public to not to resort to last minute registration, which primarily caused the long lines of registrants on October 31, the last day of the list up.
Palatino said if the law is followed, the deadline for the registration of voters for the May polls should be on January 9, 2010 yet.
The 29-year-old congressman was confident the SC will give due course to their urgent petition for certiorari and mandamus, which they filed after the Comelec refused to extend the registration despite apparent failure to accommodate millions of new registrants.
The party-list group also applied for preliminary mandatory injunction but the SC failed to act on the request because the justices have already commenced their two-week break when it was filed. Full court sessions will resume next week.
“The fact that the Comelec extended the registration until Wednesday (Nov. 4) is proof that it cannot accommodate the number of registrants given the shortened registration period and that there is really a need to move the deadline to what is mandated by the law,” Palatino said.
He added: “We urge the Supreme Court to immediately act on our petition and compel the Comelec to resume voter registration.”
Palatino said the poll body should not blame the registrants for failing to register because the office itself is responsible for ensuring an efficient registration process to accommodate as many voters as possible.
Citing National Statistics Office (NSO) data, Palatino said the Comelec disenfranchised roughly four million first-time voters when it stopped accepting new registrants last Saturday.
NSO data shows that there are 3.8 million first-time voters from age group 18 to 19 alone, while half of the 8.8 million in the age group 20 to 24 may be projected as new registrants for 2010.
“Based on this data, we can roughly project at least seven million first-time voters for 2010,” Palatino pointed out.
Source: http://mb.com.ph/articles/227937/palace-flipflops-extension
No comments:
Post a Comment