Group tells Comelec, lawmaker: Don’t persecute barangay captain

MindanaoToday.com | Group tells Comelec, lawmaker: Don’t persecute barangay captain

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – A citizen’s governance watchdog and think tank calls on Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairperson George Garcia to be more prudent in making public statements that may unnecessarily drag him and his agency into partisan politics. 

While he sounded righteous in calling out a barangay chairman running for the congressman for supposed abuse of power that resulted in a very high increase of registered voters in his village, Garcia better ask who was behind this smear campaign, said Pinoy Aksyon for Governance and the Environment (Pinoy Aksyon) in a statement.

“Barangay governments and barangay captains have no say in the acceptance of voter registrants. Only the Comelec does,” Pinoy Aksyon emphasized.

The Comelec executive should call his regional and local offices to ask how and why the voter’s list in Barangay Carmen has increased so dramatically. 

In a condemnatory tone, Garcia told the media in Manila last Wednesday that the Comelec en banc is filing a motu propio disqualification case against a barangay captain who is running for congressman in Cagayan de Oro’s 1st District.

Carmen Chair Raineir Joaquin “KapKik” Uy is the only barangay captain in the city who filed his certificate of candidacy for congressman of the city’s 1st district.

In previous interviews, Uy has reiterated that only the Comelec has the power to approve an applicant’s petition to transfer as voter in another barangay, not the local government.Pinoy Aksyon further said in a statement that Garcia should be aware that the one who alleged that the voter’s registration in barangay Carmen was “fraudulent and anomalous” is 1st District Rep. Lordan Suan.  

“Pinoy Aksyon said it is hopeful that the Comelec will afford Uy the presumption of regularity in the performance of an official function in issuing certificates of residency,” said the think tank.They are also asking Suan to stop abusing his powers to persecute his political opponents.

“Do not deny the people of district one the chance to choose their representative in the lower house of congress through an election, and not in underhanded ways,” Pinoy Aksyon tells Suan. (Pinoy Aksyon)

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