Lawmakers support total gun ban in ARMM

MANILA, Philippines - Mindanao lawmakers yesterday supported a proposal for the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to impose a total gun ban during next month’s new registration of voters in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

The proposal came from acting ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman, a former party-list representative.

Maguindanao Rep. Simeon Datumanong said the Comelec should seriously consider Hataman’s appeal since it could encourage more voters to come out and register.

He said a total ban on the carrying of firearms would prevent armed groups from roaming and intimidating and harassing registrants.

“I think more people will go to the precinct to register if they don’t see armed men around,” he said.

He added that a gun ban would ensure a peaceful registration of voters.

Datumanong, a former justice secretary, said a total firearms ban would also make it easier for Comelec-deputized police and military personnel to enforce poll registration rules and arrest people illegally carrying guns.

Rep. Carol Jane Lopez of the party-list group Youth Against Corruption and Poverty, who comes from South Cotabato, said the Comelec should adopt Hataman’s proposal “in the interest of orderly and peaceful listing of voters.”

“We have seen in the past how lawless elements disrupted electoral exercises in the ARMM region. It’s about time the Comelec resort to drastic measures to protect registrants and voters, and the process as well,” she said.

She said if the proposed gun ban succeeds, the Comelec should consider an extended prohibition against the carrying of firearms in the run-up to and during the combined ARMM-congressional-local elections in May 2013.

Earlier, the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, headed by former ambassador Henrietta de Villa, supported the proposed gun ban. 

The Comelec has decided to junk the old voters’ list in the ARMM to purify the electoral process in the autonomous region, traditionally an area for election-related violence and cheating.

The poll body estimated that there were about 200,000 questionable entries in the old voting registry.