COMELEC Office Closed on a Weekday

Sharing this post from Ralph of AYLA… kindly pass and also give feedback, reports if similar incidents are happening in your areas this summer. So we can see how to best address such unfortunate incidents. Lets get the youth and young professionals to register this summer. Thanks much. -Tanya

“I was so happy that the top management of our company has been very
supportive of the ongoing campaign of Ayala Young Leaders Alliance
advocating voters’ registration. We, the employees are entitled for
one-day leave just to make sure that we are registered in our local
COMELEC office.”

“The COMELEC website has a feature of checking whether an individual is
registered or not. I found out that I am still registered though I
have no records for my biometrics. After office hours yesterday, I
immediately proceed to the bus station for an eight-hour trip to
Mulanay, Quezon Province where I am registered. Aside from seeing my
parents whom I have not seen for months, I was so excited for the trip
to have my biometrics captured and claim my voters ID which I have
been waiting for, for the past elections.”

“Upon arriving at the local COMELEC office at around 10:00 in the
morning, all my excitement faded upon seeing that the said office is
padlocked. My temper escalated upon seeing the long lines of equally
excited youngsters whom I assume are first time voters. Some were even
wearing their PE t-shirts of some Manila schools. What I was not
surprised is that most of them are like me who intend to maximize
their long vacation and placing their registration among their to-do
list.”

“The COMELEC en banc released a resolution stating that their local
offices should be open during Saturdays and holidays. Today is
Wednesday and apparently not a holiday yet. Since no one was around to
check if the office will still open, I rushed to the office beside
COMELEC to inquire. Only to know the worst – the said office is closed
since yesterday.”

“I believe that all our efforts in the Ayala Young Leaders Alliance and
Youth Vote Philippines should by all means be given equal effort and
commitment from the COMELEC. What is it for those young men and women
behind the advocacy of promoting voters registration only to be given
this inattention from the very institution which should be the prime
mover of citizen participation in the electoral process? What is to be
expected from our campaign of getting as many youth as possible to
register if our target individuals will only encounter padlocked
COMELEC office with no single personnel around especially during the
very rare chances that they can spare time to exercise their duties as
citizens?”

“Do not blame the youth for being so-called apathetic. Apathy is a
result of outright incompetence of most of our public servants. Among
the youth, most of us are doing our share. It’s just that more often
than not, we do not receive the expected effectiveness from those in
the bureaucracy.”

“Given the average turnout of registration, it will not be an
astounding possibility to deprive hundreds of thousands if not
millions of voters. The deadline for the registration is cut short
from December 15 to October 31, 2009 in order to prepare for poll
automation, as reported. Such directive poses the possibility of
significantly decreasing the number of potential first time voters,
unreasonable closing of COMELEC offices aggravates the saddening
scenario.”

“In the 2007 senatorial elections, around 6.4 million potential voters
were not registered. This number has significantly increased for the
2010 presidential elections.”

“We can recall the outcome of the past elections where the winners of
national elective positions have a margin of less than a million.
Assuming without conceding that there were no (massive) cheating,
imagine the difference that the votes of those who were unable to
register could have affected the final tallies. Bottomline – the
impact of the evident disregard of this very office to their mandate
definitely affect the outcome of the elections and the impression of
the public of the worth of exercising their rights and duties as
citizens.”

“We appeal for immediate actions from the Commission on Elections. No
more excuses please. We are all tired to hear the seemingly endless
explanations trying to sew the loopholes in the systems the same
commission are implementing. We are doing giving our contributions.
We, the public, deserve no less.“

Ralph Reuben C. Morales
Ayala Young Leader batch 2004
Senior Development Specialist
AYLC Alumni and External Affairs
Youth Leadership Development Unit

Ayala Foundation, Inc.
10/F BPI Main Building, 6768 Ayala Avenue
corner Paseo de Roxas, Makati City

Email ralph.morales@ayalayoungleaders.ph |
Web http://www.ayalayoungleaders.ph

YouthVotePhilippines Signs MOA with GMA7

Hi everyone,

Great news! Youth Vote Philippines has just signed an agreement with GMA Network on a partnership that will bring our advocacies to GMA’s TV audience nationwide. This partnership aims to increase awareness among students, young professionals and the public on our programs that are focused on the need to get registered, the importance of voting wisely and making the youth more politically and socially aware.

We would like to share with you a video clip of our MOA signing yesterday with GMA Philippines. This was aired last night during 24Oras, Saksi and the late night news and was shown again this morning during its morning program Unang Hirit and again this afternoon at Balitanghali.

http://www.gmanews.tv/largevideo/related/37677/Saksi-GMA-Youth-Vote-Phils-sign-MOA-for-2010-polls

Our online portal is in its final stage of development and can be viewed at www.youthvotephilippines.com. (comments welcome!) A formal launch will be made once all the technical features have been finalized.

We thank all those who have continuously supported Youth Vote Philippines. YVP is a consolidated force of reform oriented youth groups whose programs are geared towards efforts for voter’s registration and voter’s education. We bring to the groups a common platform for cooperation through our online portal and a solid foundation of support through the YPS alliance of young leaders and organizations. We are non-partisan but take pride in having organizations from different reform camps who, with integrity, come together to ensure full cooperation in addressing areas of mutual concern.

A special thanks goes out to our media liaison officer Niel Lim who was the moving force behind this partnership with GMA. Looking forward to an exciting year ahead!

We will step up and take the lead!

Sincerely,

Ching Jorge

Lead Convenor

Young Public Servants, Youth Vote Philippines

Delisted QC voters told to register anew

By Anna Valmero

INQUIRER.net

First Posted 11:35:00 01/28/2009

Filed Under: Elections, Eleksyon 2010

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections has started notifying 151, 157 residents in Quezon City who have been delisted to register again, an official said.

The names of 113, 395 and 37, 762 voters in the second and third districts, respectively, were removed from the Quezon City Computerized Voters’ List during the Election Registration Board (ERB) hearing on January 19, said James Jimenez, Comelec spokesman.

Jimenez said deactivation was a way to “cleanse the voters’ list.”

“We expect more names of deactivated voters. The National Capital Region Comelec offices will finalize the numbers of deactivated voters by early February. Under the law, the Comelec will notify the deactivated voters, who are given until December to reactivate their registration,” said Jimenez.

Under Section 27 of Republic Act 8189, registered voters will be deactivated from the Comelec voters’ list for “failure to vote in the last two regular elections” specifically in the May 14, 2007 synchronized national and local elections and the Oct. 29, 2007 Barangay (village) and Sangguniang Kabataan (youth) Elections.

Lawyer Dinah Valencia, Comelec second district election officer, sent letters starting January 5, advising deactivated voters in the second district to file for reactivation of registration at her office from January 27 to December 15.

At least 17, 124 letters have been delivered to the deactivated voters and that more letters would be sent until March, said Ma. Teresa Gancita, election assistant II, Comelec Quezon City District II office, in a phone interview.

Gancita noted that the bulk of the letters were returned to the Comelec office, stating that the voter no longer lived in the address registered with the poll body.

The Comelec will decide in the second ERB hearing in March if the person’s name will be deleted from the voters’ list, said Gancita.

Third district election officer Evelyn Bautista said aside from notification via mail, they tapped the 37 village leaders to help in information dissemination.

“We sought the help of the barangay chairman in the 37 barangay to post the list of deactivated voters on the barangay bulletin boards and they welcomed the idea, saying it is one way of giving early advise to the voters and surveying if the voters still reside in the area,” said Bautista.

Bautista said they would start sending letters this week to advise delisted voters to reactivate their records.

“We waited for the ERB to release the final set of voters’ names because we do not want to send premature notifications, which already happened before,” said Bautista.

Under Section 28 of RA 8189, registered voters could file a sworn application for reactivation of registration not later than 120 days before the regular elections.

Jimenez said voters could bring one valid ID, excluding a barangay residential certificate, and fill up a form for reactivation of registration at the Office of the Election Officer in the municipality a voter is registered.

If the application is approved, the election officer will retrieve the registration record from the inactive file and include the voter’s record in the precinct book of voters, he said.