DAGUPAN CITY — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) here will be open on Saturdays and holidays to make up for the missed days of registration due to flooding in the city.
Lawyer Ericson Oganiza, city election officer, on Wednesday urged city residents, who are not yet registered as regular voters, to visit their office during these days.
“Our voter’s registration continues despite the experienced flooding brought by the intensified southwest monsoon and weather disturbances,” he said.
Oganiza said there is no extension of the registration period yet.
“It is the Comelec en banc who can decide on the matter,” he said, calling on voters to register early to avoid long queues during the deadline on September 29.
The Comelec office in the city continues to accept registrants alongside on-site registrations, such as in the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP), Oganiza said.
“Before, whenever we conduct on-site registration, we could not accommodate other registrants in the office. But now that we have new equipment, even if we have on-site registration, our office can still process other registrants,” he said.
A voter’s registration for qualified inmates, who are residents of this city and detained in the facility of the BJMP, will be held on Aug. 28 and 30, Oganiza said, adding that they are expecting about 400 inmates to register.
“The inmates can still exercise their right of suffrage because they are not yet convicted of any crime. They are detained in the facility as they wait for the verdict of the case filed against them,” he said.
However, on-site registrations in some barangays have yet to be finalized since some areas have experienced severe flooding, Oganiza said. (Hilda Austria/PNA)
