Gutierrez said minor incidents involved heated discussions and fistfights in centers where registrants waited in long and crowded lines.

The ARMM regional police office classified an incident in Barangay Bilaan in Talipao as registration related.Two residents figured in a fistfight about 300 meters away from the clustered registration center of the village but it was also immediately settled.

At least two school administrators of public schools used during the registration commended the Commission on Election (Comelec) for a “systematic and orderly” registration.

Haiver Alamia, principal of the Bakud Elementary School and Pendatun Hadi principal of Parang National High School both observed that for the first time, they saw the members of indigenous group Tausug falling in line because those manning the registration centers “did not show favoritism.”

The registration, both said, were done on a “fist come, first served” basis and Comelec was seen issuing numbers during the first five days of the registration because of the number of people that flocked to the centers.

On the other hand, callers on DXSM hotline complained that they were prevented from registering in some areas.

There were also some who reported  incidents of “hakot” or the transporting of registrants to voting centers, but political leaders were quick to explain that they needed to help poor constituents who could not afford to shell out fare to go to the centers, which were far from their residences.

Although only about three percent of the population is Catholic, the Church called on residents to go out and register.As of latest partial unofficial results from the Comelec, the number of registrants so far is 300,830, less than its listed 341,536 voters.

(Love Ilustre is a reporter for the Jolo-based radio station DXSM. ARMM WATCH  is a project of VERA Files in partnership with MindaNews, The Asia Foundation and Australian Agency for International Development.)