Commissioner George Garcia of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) announced on Thursday that the names of more than 755,000 deceased Filipinos had been deleted from the voter list for the May 2022 elections.
Garcia stated in a press conference that 755,769 names on the registration records were canceled due to death.
He then asked families of people who had died to produce death certificates to the local Comelec so that their records may be updated even if the civil registrar’s certification was missing.
“Ang sabi ko nga po, ang problema ‘pag namatay, ‘pag namatay doon sa ibang lugar maliban doon sa kung saan talaga sila nakatira. Dapat kasi ang mag-i-issue ng certification ay ‘yung civil registrar kung saan nakatira ‘yung matanda o ‘yung namatay,” Garcia said.
“Nakipag-usap kami sa atin pong Census and Statistics Office na nationally magsa-submit sila sa main office ng Comelec ng lahat ng namatay nationwide para kami naman po ang magbibigay ng mga pangalan na ‘yan sa aming local Comelec para maiwasan na sabihin na hindi matanggal dahil nga walang certification,” Garcia added.
Garcia went on to say that persons who died as a result of COVID-19 in a location other than their home may still be included in the voter list.
Comelec removes over 700k deceased voters from list
“Yung mga nagka-COVID tapos nadala sa ibang lugar, doon nagamot, tapos doon po namatay, posible talaga na maaaring hindi po sila natanggal kasi nga po maghihintay yung local Comelec, base sa batas, ng certification mula sa civil registrar kung saan namatay ‘yung nagka-COVID,” he said.
“Pero, at the same time, kung yung mismong pamilya naman ang nagbigay ng certification mula sa civil registrar na namatay talaga yung kanilang kaanak, sure po na tatanggalin ‘yun ng local Comelec natin. Hindi na maghihintay ng certification mula sa civil registrar kasi nagbigay na ng death certificate ‘yung pamilya,” the Comelec official added.
According to Garcia, the poll board has also erased 1,490,678 registration records of persons who moved to another city or municipality and 892,627 registration records determined to be duplicated.
According to their voting records, the poll body also deactivated 7,229,493 people who failed to vote in two consecutive elections.
According to the newly-appointed Commissioner, there were 6,950,449 new registrants for the May 9 elections.
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