Chiz Escudero

Having 45 million voters out of a population of 87 million are still incredibly high.

Commissioner Rene Sarmiento of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) announced that 1.13 million names had been removed from the voters’ list. He said the names are those of people who are already dead or have gone abroad as indicated by their failure to vote in two consecutive elections.  The people who remain in the list, the official claimed, are legitimate voters.

It is not possible that more than half of the population are voters. The Philippines, with its high population growth, is a country of young people. That means, there are more children than there are adults in the population.

But I’ll take Mr. Sarmiento’s word for it. As a start, however, I hope that the Comelec will continue to disseminate the list of voters early so that people will know the voters in their respective precincts.

The list of voters must be made available early to prevent cheating. There are 10 million Filipinos living and working overseas, and political parties at the grassroots level know who these people are. 

The rule requires that names of voters who fail to exercise the right of suffrage in two consecutive elections must be removed from the list. Of course, migrant workers who are away only temporarily should be retained. But nobody should be allowed to vote in the name of an absent or dead voter.

Early dissemination of the voters’ list will also prevent confusion on election day. Some Comelec provincial officers, at the behest of the party in power, transfer names from one precinct to another precisely for that purpose.

A month ago, I have already demanded that the poll body purge the list of voters, as it could not be possible that more than half of the 87 million Filipinos are voters. At the time, the huge number of voters could be the result of multiple registration and registration of non-existent voters.

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