Youth to register 1M new voices for change
Extend voters’ registration, Comelec told

Around 1,000 first-time voters from different parts of the country registered for next year’s polls, vowed to serve as poll watchers, and act for change beyond the 2010 elections.

Two months before the Commission on Elections’ deadline of voters’ registration, new voters from Metro Manila, Baguio, Laguna, Quezon, Bicol, Davao and Cebu registered as part of Kabataan Party-list’s Isang Milyon, Isang Panata (1M, 1P) campaign, which aims to engage the youth to help out in encouraging one million new registrants before the October 30 deadline. The campaign seeks to achieve its objective by targetting one million new voters per town or municipality.

“One million may seem difficult to achieve. But it is realizable. Through collective youth participation, we can realize our united pledge-to advance the politics of change and steer our government in the direction of change,” Kabataan Party-list Representative Raymond “Mong” Palatino said.

At 10:30 am, the registrants held a program at Mehan Garden featuring youth leaders and celebrities, and marched to Comelec where they registered.

First-time voters who registered took the 1M, 1P pledge: “Panata naming bumoto. Panata naming bantayan ang boto. Panata naming kumilos para sa pagbabago.” They also recevied blue and yellow ballers as constant reminders of their pledge to act for progressive change.

At 4:00 pm, youth and student groups also held a noise barrage in front of the Commission on Elections to call for the extension of voters’ registration, launching of more satellite registration, and an easier and faster registration process.

Palatino said that his office has been receiving a steady stream of reports and complaints from Sangguniang Kabataan officials, student councils and community-based youth organizations that satellite registrations being held in their areas are “too limiting.”

“The problem is the Comelec is imposing a per day quota for every satellite registration. We have had complaints, for instance, that an SK managed to gather as many as a thousand (first-time voters), only to have the Comelec shut down its machines and pack up after 200 new registrants. Their reason is that the machines cannot handle the numbers. Add this factor to the also limited number of machines and the time-consuming process of applying for satellite registration, babagal talaga,” Palatino said.

He said that the Comelec should have first considered these factors before shortening the deadline for voters’ registration.

“At the rate things are going and with only two months to go, how many new registrants is the Comelec really expecting? We reiterate our call to extend the deadline to the original date of December 15 as a concrete and feasible resolution to this problem,” Palatino said.

Palatino earlier filed House Resolution 1162, urging the Comelec to return the deadline of voters’ registration from October 30 to December 15.###