Comelec urges youth to register now for SK, barangay polls

CEBU, Philippines - The Commission on Elections is now calling on the youth, as well as regular voters, to register now with their respective election offices if they are really serious in making their votes count in the SK and barangay elections in October of next year.

Dumaguete City Election Assistant II Jason Orbeta said the local election office only has an average of 25 registrants a day that include transfer of registration records, reactivation of registration records, change of name, correction of entries or a total of 339 in the month of November.

As such, it is a good time now to register to avoid inconvenience because the process will be finished in five minutes with less hastle rather than beat the deadline.

It will be recalled that during the extension of the registration from July 15 to July 30 this year, hundreds of new prospective voters for the SK have failed to register and so they asked for an extension. Now that the registration is continuing, the provincewide registration for November is only 1,923.

The city election office has sent notices to all the barangays in Dumaguete to encourage prospective voters in their barangays to register early. 

Orbeta said the Comelec-Dumaguete is open to requests for an offsite registration, the schedule for the whole morning this coming Saturday is at the barangay hall in Camanjac.

Other barangays are requested to coordinate with the election office for the scheduling of their resquests for an offsite registration up to April next year, just bring copies of birth certificates.

Those who can register are minors who will turn 15 years old on or before October 27, 2017 for the SK elections and 18 years old and above.

So far, the municipality of Sibulan has the highest number of registrants with 257 for the month of November alone.

Election officer Virgilio Quibal said his first target are the highschools  through an offsite registration by contacting the principals.

It was first conducted at the Ajong high school, to be followed by an offsite registration in Boloc-boloc and Poblacion Sibulan. While targeting first the highschools, Quibal has also scheduled a meeting with the 15 barangay captains of the town to ensure a higher percentage of registration. (FREEMAN)