By LOVE ILUSTRE, DXSM
JOLO, Sulu— Election officials noticed a decline in the number of residents going to registration centers, on the eighth day of the ongoing voters’ registration in some towns in this province.
Compared to the first week of registration where centers were crammed and jammed, there were fewer registrants in the towns of Indanan, Patikul and the capital town of Jolo.
The Commission on Election (Comelec) has deployed 200 voters registration machines all over Sulu to cater to those who are 18 and above or those who will be turning 18 before the 2013 elections.
Sulu is one of the five provinces of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), along with Basilan, Tawi-tawi, Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur. Congress ordered the purging of the old voters’ list because of the ARMM’s notoriety of being the country’s cheating capital.
Joint police and military forces continue to provide security forces in Sulu. A July 16 report submitted by the regional Philippine National Police show there are 2,000 total number of police and military deployed in the province and 38 assigned as security of the Comelec monitoring teams.
Police and military have also advised media practitioners who want to cover the ongoing registration in the province to be responsible and coordinate with them following the kidnapping of Jordanian journalist Baker Atyani and his two Filipino crew last June.
(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.)
