By CONG B. CORRALES
Associate Editor
LIKE a horde of zombies, last-minute voteregistrants dogged election workers at the mall, clawing at the window panes as they scrambled to get their biometrics validated or get registered for the first time here in the early hours of Saturday, the last day for voters’ registration and biometrics validation.
Emotions were high as many of the last-minute voters ended up insulting employees of Commission on Elections (Comelec) in the city. Even mall guards were not spared from the diatribes and strings of expletives of the panicking last-minute voters.
Chief Insp. Alfredo Ortiz, Cogon police station commander, told the Gold Star Daily on Friday that he deployed as much as 30 police officers to help keep the order at the mall.
“Upon request of the City Comelec, we are here to keep the people in order,” said Ortiz, adding that people became rowdy and testy.
“Hindi naman talaga nagkagulo, nagkainitan lang ng ulo,” said Ortiz.
Biometrics became a prerequisite for each voter only last year.
On Friday, the penultimate deadline, the city Comelec office finished processing some 900 voters at 10 pm.
Election assistant Lailani Nazi said the insistence of registering at the last minute was the “perfect reflection of state of our society.”
“Bakit hindi nila ginawa noon? Where were they when we visited their barangays? This is the perfect reflection of society–doing things at the last minute. We started the voters’ registration immediately after the 2013 mid-term elections,” said Nazi.
She said voters had exactly one year and eight months to register and get their biometrics validated.
Nazi also decried and singled out what she called as inaccurate reports by a local radio station that priority numbers were being sold.
“Pinupunit ang priority number (after serving the voter). Hindi ko pinipirmahan ang priority numbers for the next day and they have no way of knowing the color of the paper we are going to use on a particular day,” Nazi said.
She added, “Anong klaseng reporting ‘yan? Hindi man lang nagtanong sa amin kung ano ang proseso sa paggawa ng priority numbers.”
In the May 10, 2010 elections, some 287,025 voters were registered with the Comelec office in the city while the number of registered voters slightly declined with 277,931 registered voters. As of this writing, there are have been 287,307 who have registered and had their biometrics validated.
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