DAVAO CITY—Bangsamoro regional government officials are appealing to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to reconsider its recent resolution that barred voters from newly included areas to vote for local candidates.
The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Barmm) officials filed their appeal a day after the Comelec released its Minute Resolution Number 21-0953 on January 3 “barring registered voters from 63 Special Geographic Areas [SGA] to exercise their rights to vote in the upcoming 2022 local elections.”
The resolution allowed constituents of SGA to vote for the national positions “pending the determination of the constituent’s local government units until the holding of the 2022 elections,” Barmm said.
Minister Atty. Naguib G. Sinarimbo of the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government (MILG) said the resolution “deprives over 200,000 SGA constituents of their right of suffrage and of equal protection of the law.”
Sinarimbo said that while the 63 barangays from North Cotabato have become part of the Regional Autonomous Government and no longer part of Region XII, “they have not been reconstituted [yet] into appropriate Local Government Units (LGUs) pursuant to the Organic Law.”
He said that “in the computation of the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) of North Cotabato and respective SGA municipalities, the population, land area, and income of the 63 barangays still form part of North Cotabato and their municipalities, hence constituents are still entitled to be represented and their voices be heard.”