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Detainee Voting, LGUs Urged
By
Czarina Nicole Ong
May
2, 2012, 2:47pm
MANILA, Philippines - The Department of the Interior and
Local Government (DILG) yesterday directed local chief executives (LCEs) to
comply with the recently-promulgated resolution regarding the guidelines on
detainee registration and voting to ensure that detainees still qualified to
vote shall be allowed to register and exercise their suffrage as residents.
In his Memorandum Circular No. 2012-66, Interior and Local
Government Secretary Jesse M. Robredo said that LCEs, regional directors, and
the governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao must comply with the
Commission on Elections (Comelec) Resolution No. 9371, or the “Rules and
Regulations on Detainee Registration and Voting in Connection with the May 13,
2013 National and Local Elections and Subsequent Elections Thereafter.”
This was agreed upon during a meeting between the DILG and
the Comelec’s Committee on Detainee Voting, headed by Commissioner Rene Sarmiento,
on March 10.
In her memorandum, Director Esmeralda Amora-Ladra of the
Comelec’s Law Department said that detainees are among “certain sectors in our
society whose members, though qualified, are effectively deprived of their
right to cast their votes.”
She recalled that detainees were previously not allowed to
register to vote or transfer their registration records to the place of their
confinement, impeding them from participating in the May 2010 elections.
Ladra, however, cited Section 9 of Republic Act No. 8189 stating
that persons at least 18 years old, residents of the Philippines for at least a
year, and of the place they wish to register in as voters for at least six
months, shall be allowed to register.
She added that detainees as well as persons who temporarily
live in other places for other reasons such as work should be allowed to
register and vote in their temporary residence.
Moreover, through the promulgated resolution, detainees may
now enlist in their respective detention centers through satellite registration
for the forthcoming 2013 elections.
Meanwhile, detainees who are registered in other areas or
prisoners in detention centers without established special polling centers must
be escorted to their respective polling places.
Those who are registered in other areas may apply for
transfer of registration records to the place of their confinement.
The Committee on Detainee Voting will be working together
with the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP), Bureau of Corrections,
Commission on Human Rights, watch groups, and some non-government organizations
in safeguarding the detainees’ right to vote.
During the campaign period, candidates shall also be allowed
to enter detention centers but must still comply with the rules and regulations
provided by the BJMP and Comelec.
To maintain order, the BJMP said that the division of
detainee voters will be done by listing together detainee voters belonging to
the same district.
In connection with this, the BJMP also said that registered
detainee voters that are released as of the last working day of February of the
election year will be excluded from the BJMP list.
They will also give the Election Officer an updated list of
detainees who are released from the first Monday of March up to the date of the
submission of the list.
Special polling places will be established in an area inside
the jail spacious enough to accommodate more than 10 people to ensure that
voting will be completed while there is still sufficient time to deliver all
the accomplished ballots to the different precincts where detainees are
registered.
A special precinct will also be established in case there
are more than 500 detainee voters.
