The Department of Interior and Local Government, together with officials of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and the Commission on Elections, are on the verge of totally implementing a genuine electoral reform in the region, uncovering, delisting and trimming down its previous 1.8 million “registered voters” to just 1.5 million.

Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse M. Robredo said efforts are underway to further scrutinize and trim down the new 1.5 million registered voters at the ARMM which held its new voters’ re-listing last July 9 to 18, 2012.

“As of now, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) says the previously recorded 1.8 million registered voters at ARMM had been reduced to 1.5 million. The result of the new re-listing figures may still go down because it is still subject for further cleansing,” he said.

Initially, the earlier recorded 567,443 registered voters list in Maguindanao was trimmed down by at least 60,000 while Marawi City, with an earlier recorded 67,000 registered voters, was found to have an allegedly “padded” voters’ list of 24,000.

The ARMM is composed of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

Officials of the Comelec, DILG and ARMM have expressed belief that the 1.8 million voters earlier recorded in ARMM would be reduced further to just 1.2 million after the “cleansing process.”

“If this figure of 1.2 million genuine voters will come out, then it is a clear indication that the ARMM voters list in the past was padded with 600,000 registrants,” Robredo said.

“The Comelec has trimmed Marawi City’s 67,000 voters down to just 43,000.If I were to interpret it right, this means that the voters’ list in the city is padded with 24,000 “flying” voters in the past,” he added.

At present, the DILG chief said, the Comelec and ARMM officials led by OIC Gov. Mujiv Hataman are in the process of determining and de-listing of some registrants who are under-aged, already dead individuals, and multiple registrants.

The DILG chief said military reports reaching him indicated that the active role made by the multi-agency Task Force Ranao to genuinely cleanse the voters’ list in Marawi City has enraged some of the city’s local officials, apparently embarrassed by the turnout of the latest voters’ re-listing.

Col. Daniel Lucero, head of the Marawi City-based Army’s 103 Infantry Brigade, said in earlier reports that the recent attacks against Army troops inside the Mindanao State University where three soldiers and two civilians were killed was a result of TF Ranao’s rejection of a Marawi City-based political camp’s effort to register as voters some students from the Mindanao State University.

“The latest ambush was the 4th in a series of attacks against Army soldiers by the alleged henchmen of the Marawi City politician after the 10-day voters’ re-listing last July,” Lucero was quoted as saying.

After the latest ambuscade inside the MSU compound, school officials led by Dr. Macapado Muslim, MSU president, ordered the indefinite suspension of classes for the safety of over 10,000 students in the more than 500-hectare university campus. ###

DILG Central News Archive DILG Regional News Archive