By BABYLYN KANO-OMAR
VERA Files
BONGAO, Tawi-tawi—Former Elections Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal, now vice president of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), arrived here Sunday for a brief visit to check on PPCRV operations.
Larrazabal visited six registration centers, and in some of these centers saw that among the PPCRV volunteers were persons with disability (PWDs). Larrazabal represented PPCRV head Henrietta de Villa.
The PPCRV has been deeply involved in the ongoing general registration of voters in the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), of which Tawi-tawi is part.
Meantime, a fist fight erupted between a local official and a registrant, capping a day of tension which saw residents still unable to secure voters’ application forms. Witnesses said the local official was seen handing out the forms to his friends and supporters, while others had been waiting days to get hold of those forms.
Further violence was averted by the timely intervention of the Marines who broke up the fight.
(Babylyn Kano-Omar is a journalist at DXGD-AM, a radio station run by the Catholic Church in Bongao, Tawi-tawi. She is also provincial coordinator of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting or PPCRV and is president of the Electoral Reform Advocates. ARMM WATCH is a project of VERA Files in partnership with MindaNews, The Asia Foundation and Australian Agency for International Development.)
