BORACAY – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) said it had no basis to exclude more than 700 voter registrants in Boracay Island in the list of voters.
The applicants’ registration and transfer of registration records were challenged before Comelec-Malay on Oct. 14, 2021.
Edwin Pelayo, a resident of Barangay Manocmanoc, noted a surge in voter registrants in the adjacent barangays of Yapak and Balabag between July 1 and Oct. 13, 2021.
They were not actually residents of Malay, Aklan, he stressed in his sworn affidavit.
Pelayo questioned 401 voter registrants in Balabag and 371 voter registrants in Yapak, citing residency issues.
But according to Election Officer III and Comelec-Aklan spokesperson Chrispin Raymund Gerardo, the opposed applicants showed up during the Election Registration Board (ERB) hearing on Oct. 20 to prove and explain their residency qualifications as a requirement for registration.
“There was no substantial evidence presented by the petitioner to disqualify the applicants. The due process was observed,” he stressed.
A voter applicant should be 18 years of age on or before the May 9, 2022 local and national elections, and a resident of the Philippines for at least one year and in the place wherein the applicant proposes to vote, for at least six months immediately preceding the elections.
Meanwhile, three mayoral candidates in Malay, Aklan are running for the local election in May 2022. Acting town mayor Frolibar Bautista is challenging Yapak barangay captain Hector Casidsid and former Yapak barangay kagawad Marilyn Villaresis./PN
