SK polls: 3M youth may fail to register

About three million youth between the ages of 15 and 18 cannot vote in the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections on July 15 if no special registration is held next month.

Commission of Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Resurreccion Borra said Commissioners Luzviminda Tancangco, Mehol Sadain, Ralph Lantion and Rufino Javier refused to sign a poll body resolution which calls for a special registration of voters from April 22 to 27.

"There is a provision in Republic Act 9165 that orders the Comelec to conduct a special registration for the SK or those in the 15 to 18 age bracket," he said.

"So if they will not sign the resolution, (Tancangco, Sadain, Lantion and Javier) are the ones responsible if there are many voters who will not be able to vote on the July 15 elections," Borra said.

He said only 1.7 million of the estimated five million new voters between 15 and 18 years old were able to register in the continuing registration that ended in December last year.

It is necessary for the poll body to pass a special registration because some three million new voters have yet to register on April 22-27, Borra added.

Comelec Chairman Alfredo Benipayo said last March 14, the Comelec en banc was supposed to discuss the draft resolution on the special registration but that it did not push through for lack of quorum.

Only he, Borra and Tuason attended the meeting as Tancangco, Sadain, Lantion and Javier failed to show up, Benipayo added.

In a memorandum, Sadain said he and the three other commissioners did not take part in the meeting because they believe the poll body should have first taken up the rules of conduct governing en banc sessions.

The matter must be placed on the en banc’s first order of business in their next meeting to avoid "any confusion" when the poll body discusses other election matters, Sadain added.

Comelec executive director Mamasapunod Aguam said a resolution needs four signatures so there would be a quorum in the en banc meeting and to signify the presence of four commissioners.

"That’s the problem, if the (resolution) could not be promulgated, there would be no special registration," he said. "With no quorum, that is less than four present, a resolution cannot be promulgated, hence it cannot be implemented. With four signatures, whether only three affirming it and one either abstaining or dissenting, the resolution can be promulgated and implemented."

Aguam said the Comelec was expecting about five million new voters to take part in the SK elections but that only two million were able to register last December.

Aguam said the SK elections also have no funds because only about P1.2 billion out of the P1.8 billion the poll body had requested was allocated for the barangay elections.

"In the SK, we were not given any funding," he said. "That is one of the problems of the commission now. In the barangay elections, it is okay. However, there was no appropriation of funds in the barangay elections for special registration. In the barangay, we asked for P1.8 billion, but we were given P900 million, plus additional P300 million from the Senate."

The government told the Comelec to get 10 percent of the funds from local governments, Aguam added.

Meanwhile, Borra said the problem of funding for the SK elections had been resolved after local governments agreed to shell out 10 percent from the allocated barangay reserve fund.

"Last week we had a meeting with the local governments, the Department of Budget and Management, the National Youth Commission, and the Philippine Information Agency, and they all agreed for the Comelec to tap the 10 percent reserve fund of barangay for the use of SK elections," he said.