Lanao del Sur court orders delisting of ‘fake voters’
PUALAS, LANAO DEL SUR—Amid the heavy presence of police officers and soldiers, election officials here started delisting from the list of registered voters some 1,750 names whom a local court found to be “fictitious.”
Municipal election officer Arang Banto said she is implementing an order from the Third Municipal Trial Court in Ganassi town in its decision last Feb. 27, branding the names as “fake voters” after they failed to show proof of residency in the town.
“We are removing the names one by one and manually,” Banto told reporters from the heavily guarded Pualas municipal hall on Monday.
Pualas is one of 18 towns of Lanao del Sur’s 39 municipalities that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has categorized as “areas of grave concern” in the national and local elections on May 12.
Last December, mayoral aspirant Al Ihsan Marohom Ibrahim filed a petition before the Ganassi court seeking the delisting of 3,000 alleged fake voters in Pualas, mostly supporters of Mayor Amanoden Ducol.
Under watch
Banto said it would take days to complete the process of removing the “fake voters” from the voters’ list.
Col. Noel Ian Ignes, deputy commander of the Army’s 103rd Brigade, said Pualas and 17 other towns had been classified as “areas of grave concern” due to their history of shootings, grenade attacks and intense political rivalry.
“Marawi City is also categorized as an area of grave concern due to reported electoral violence on Election Day [in the past],” he added.
Ignes said nine towns in Lanao del Sur were categorized as “orange” (areas of concern) while eight others were tagged as “yellow” (areas of least concern) for this year’s midterm elections.
He said only four towns in the province had no history of election-related violence.
Meanwhile, the Comelec has issued a certificate of finality rejecting the motion for reconsideration filed by Camiguin congressional aspirant Paul Rodriguez, effectively upholding the cancellation of his certificate of candidacy for the island province’s lone congressional district seat.
The motion was filed in response to a petition by incumbent Rep. Jurdin Jesus Romualdo, who challenged Rodriguez’s eligibility on the grounds of nonresidency.
Romualdo alleged that Rodriguez failed to meet the minimum residency requirement to run for public office in the province.
In a resolution dated April 11, the Comelec en banc ruled that its earlier decision to cancel Rodriguez’s candidacy was “final, executory and immediately effective,” barring any further legal remedies at the commission level. —WITH A REPORT FROM CONG CORRALES
