7,000 multiple voter registrants face raps

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has started filing complaints against 7,000 individuals found to have registered as voters twice or more, an official said yesterday.

The Comelec has uncovered 491,017 multiple voter registrants ahead of the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections in October.

“We have started filing complaints against 7,000 people for committing the election offense,” Comelec Chairman George Garcia said.

He said the election complaints would be filed with the Comelec’s law department.

– Evelyn Macairan After a surge in new COVID cases last month, the percentage of people testing positive for the virus has returned to moderate level in the National Capital Region (NCR), the OCTA Research group announced yesterday.

OCTA fellow Guido David said Metro Manila’s seven-day positivity rate dropped from 14.6 percent on June 6 to 9.4 percent on June 13.

Last month, the COVID positivity rate in the NCR reached 25 percent.

The positivity rate measures the number of positive results out of the total reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction or RT-PCR tests conducted.

While still above the recommended five percent, OCTA said the indicator for COVID cases is now considered at “moderate” level.

David said the NCR remains at “low risk” for COVID, citing other indicators such as the low hospital bed occupancy, which dropped from 25.5 to 24.1 percent.