Cebu voting population reduced by 200,000, says provincial election supervisor

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Around 200,000 individuals have been deleted from Cebu’s roster of registered voters, said Cebu Provincial Election Supervisor Lawyer Lionel Marco Castillano.

Castillano said they have already deleted from their database those voters who failed to vote for two consecutive elections and the names from the list of deaths from local civil registrars of the 53 towns and cities of the province, including the highly urbanized cities of Lapu-Lapu and Cebu.

The voter registration and reactivation is still going on and will run until September 30, 2019 for those who want to reactivate their names.

But Castillano said they foresee that the number of the newly registered voters within this period will not be sufficient to offset the number of deactivated voters.

The ongoing voters’ registration is in preparation for the 2020 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections (BSKE).

During the May 13, 2019 elections, Cebu was the most vote-rich province in the country with 3,082,621 voters. Castillano said the reduction of voters will not affect the status of Cebu as the top vote-rich province.

Cavite, the province with the second-largest voting population based on the May 2019 voters’ list, only had 2,148,899 voters.

Meanwhile, Castillano said that the poll body will continue to reach out to far-flung areas and sectors in order to promote more inclusive Barangay elections.

The registration and reactivation of voters in the election offices of the towns and cities will also run until September 30.

“Yesterday [ September 16], the second district of  Cebu City conducted a special registration among indigent peoples. Naa man tay mga Badjao nga naa sa Alaska Mambaling. We were able to register them before pero kahibalo ta nga naa pod nay mga bag-o nga nag 18 or nag-15 nila so ni-reach ta for them to be able to register,” said Castillano.

(Yesterday, the second district of Cebu City conducted a special registration among indigent peoples. We have a Badjao community here in Alaska Mambaling. We were able to register them before but there are those who just turned 15 or 18 so we reached out to them again to have them registered.)

“Kung makita nimo, ang gihimo sa Comelec is for a more inclusive nga elections. Kinahanglan nga tanan makaparticipate, tanan ma-register,”Castillano added.

(The Comelec is moving for a more inclusive elections. We want to have everybody, as much as possible, to be able to register and participate.)

Castillano also said that each election office in the towns and cities of the province has organized their own off-site registrations in schools and far-flung barangays in order to encourage more residents to register themselves. /bmjo