VOTERS REGISTRATION. Commission on Elections (Comelec) offices in Pangasinan’s four cities and the capital town, Lingayen, will serve as pilot areas in the nationwide implementation of the Register Anywhere Program (RAP). The program allows residents from anywhere in the country to register in a local Comelec office during the resumption of voters’ registration from Feb. 12. to Aug. 31, 2024, ahead of the 2025 national and local elections. (PNA file photo)
MALASIQUI, Pangasinan – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) offices in Pangasinan’s four cities and the capital town will serve as pilot areas for the nationwide implementation of the Register Anywhere Program (RAP), allowing voters from other areas to register.
Comelec-Pangasinan election supervisor lawyer Marino Salas, in an interview Wednesday, said the Comelec offices in the cities of Dagupan, Urdaneta, San Carlos and Alaminos, and in Lingayen, the province’s capital town, will offer RAP from Feb. 12 until Aug. 31 this year.
“They will have two machines in their offices, one for the ordinary registration and the other one for RAP,” he said.
Aside from new voter registration, RAP sites will also accept transfer of registration, transfer of registration from overseas to local, correction of entries or change of status, and reactivation.
“We capture biometrics of registrants since we have the capacity or technology to process every registered voter anywhere in the Philippines. We can see in the database if there are double registrants since we can compare the biometrics from the application and it will inform us if there are double or multiple registrants,” Salas said in Filipino.
Resumption of voters’ registration will start on Feb. 12 and will last until Sept. 30 this year in line with the midterm national and local elections in 2025.
Salas said they target to register around 30,000 to 50,000 new voters from ordinary registration and RAP during this round of voters’ registration.
Comelec data show that there were about 2.1 million registered voters in the province for the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections in December 2023.
Salas said the Commission will have satellite or offsite registrations sites in barangay (village) halls, malls, schools and even the jail facilities to give everyone the opportunity to exercise their right of suffrage.
He said Comelec offices in the province will be open between 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. from Mondays to Saturdays, except during the Holy Week, to cater to registrants.
He also urged the residents to not wait until the deadline before they go to the Comelec offices. (PNA)
