Cebu Comelec urges voters to exercise right of suffrage ‘rightfully’

Brillantes | CDN file photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Exercise your right to vote “rightfully.”

Lawyer Jerome Brillantes, Commission on Elections in Cebu provincial election supervisor, reminds Cebuano voters to participate in the nation-building by casting conscientious votes on Monday, May 13, 2019.

Cebu, being the most vote-rich province in the country, has 3,082,621 voters including those from the cities of Cebu and Lapu-Lapu that are expected to cast their votes this midterm polls.

‘That (voters’ turnout) is something we cannot predict yet kay lisod man pod kaayo kon atong pangunahan ang mga tawo. But we remind them to exercise their right to vote rightfully and be the hope of the nation through this election,” Brillantes told CDN Digital.

Brillantes, however, said he could not yet ascertain the percentage of Cebu’s voters would actually exercise their right to vote this year.

Last 2016 Presidential elections, 85.6 percent or 1.6 million voters participated in the elections. Cebu at the time had a 1.9 million voting population.

While logging a total of 2.3 million registered voters for the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) last May 2018, Cebu’s voters’ turnout was only at 75.6 percent or  1,747,161 voters.

Brillantes, in an interview on Sunday, May 12, said they are on their last stage of preparations for the polls.

Beginning Sunday afternoon, the Comelec official said that the election paraphernalia including the official ballots would be transported to far-flung voting centers in order to secure that it would be safely delivered.

Police personnel detailed in voting centers will be securing the paraphernalia and the election proceedings on Monday.

Read more: No more ‘red election hotspots’ in Cebu, says PRO-7 official

Polling centers will start to open for voters at 6 a.m. and will last for 12 hours or until 6 p.m. However, voters, who are still within the 30-meter radius of the polling centers by 6 p.m., will still be accommodated.

Brillantes said they would be paying close attention to the eight areas in the province under the orange category of the election watchlist.

These include the towns of Tuburan, San Fernando, Ronda, Dumanjug, Daanbantayan, Asturias, Pinamungajan, and San Francisco.

Aside from these, the cities of Cebu, Lapu-Lapu and Mandaue are also under the yellow category of the election watchlist areas (EWAs) along with the cities of Danao, Bogo, and Carcar and the towns of Pilar, Poro, Camotes, Tudela, Madridejo, Santa Fe and Bantayan.

Brillantes said the provincial office had not received any report of difficulties in the preparations of the local Comelec offices in the towns./dbs