By BABYLYN KANO-OMAR
VERA Files
BONGAO, Tawi-tawi—Reports of “flying” registrants in different barangays here are reaching the election watchdog Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting.
On Day 4 of the 10-day general registration, residents lining up to enlist complained that unknown people have been cutting through long lines of registrants waiting for their turns to fill up voters’ application forms and have these processed by voters’ registration machines (VRMs).As a result, people in some barangays in Tawi-tawi have settled down for a long wait. The queues outside some of the registration centers have begun to look like picnics or camping trips, as residents brought with them stock of food.
In one case, a PPCRV coordinator noted that one registrant was accompanied by an assistor who did not even know the registrant’s name, bolstering suspicion that outsiders were being brought in by certain groups.
The general registration of voters in the five provinces of the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Tawi-tawi included, started July 9 and ends on July 18.
(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.)