BAGUIO CITY – An official of the Commission on Elections-Baguio hopes to register additional 10,000 voters with the opening of a satellite office in a mall here and the Register Anywhere Program.
Comelec-Baguio election officer lawyer John Paul Martin said they have exceeded their 10,000 registration target after recording 11,831 registered voters since the process started last Feb. 12.
These are on top of the 545 who availed of the “Register Anywhere Program (RAP)", he said.
“We try as much to continue increasing this output for the last two months of registration which will be until Sept. 30,” he said in an interview Friday.
Under the RAP, a voter from any province in the country can register, revive registration, transfer registration without the need to travel to the place where the person intends to cast vote in the midterm election in 2025.
Martin said Baguio has about 169,711 registered voters for the 2022 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections but about 17,000 were delisted after the polls for failure to vote for two consecutive national elections.
As of Aug. 2, the city has a total voting population of 159,816 with the addition of those who have registered from Feb. 12 to June 30.
“Those who have registered in the first four months of the ongoing registration have been approved by the Election Registration Board (ERB) while those who registered from July 1 to Sept. 30 will still be subjected to the ERB approval in its meeting on Oct. 15,” Martin said.
Martin said they hope to reach the delisted voters and the unregistered votes, thus the opening of the mall-based satellite registration center.
“Even if our office is just near the mall, we opted to bring it to the mall because based on our experience, there are many who are just visiting the mall who take a few steps to the registration area because of the proximity and convenience,” he said.
Aside from the satellite office, Comelec-Baguio has also conducted special registrations activities like those held at the University of the Cordilleras, University of Baguio, St. Louis University, major public high schools, city market, city hall building for the employees and for the persons with disabilities, the senior citizens during their assemblies, and at the city jail.
“We want to ensure that there is no reason for all sectors to not be counted that is why we bring the registration to them,” he said. (PNA)
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