by Ryan Rosauro
DIPOLOG CITY—An old problem potentially hounds the integrity of the modernized elections in Zamboanga del Norte on Monday.
Local candidates are still hoping that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) can look into the “questionable voting population figures” of Sibuco town which are believed to have been padded.
Sibuco, which is just 40 kilometers away from Zamboanga City, gained infamy for barangays which appear to have more registered voters than residents.
Reelectionist Dipolog City mayor Evelyn Tang-Uy said they want the poll body to “take remedial measures and prevent these from soiling the results” of Monday’s balloting.
“We want to win in a contest that is fair and square. If we lose, that’s fine as long as the results are credible,” Uy said. Uy’s husband is running for governor of Zamboanga del Norte.
“Maybe, having a special poll schedule for Sibuco can be a viable measure. But we leave it to the Comelec to decide on what appropriate measures to take,” she added.
For Monday’s polls, Sibuco has 30,985 registered voters across its 28 barangays. For the purpose of casting their ballots, the town’s voting population is organized into 43 clustered precincts.
Based on the Comelec’s 2010 Project of Precincts (PoP) for Sibuco, 10 of its 28 barangays have voting populations that were way beyond the headcount of individual villagers as determined by the Census of Population and Housing done that year. An example is Barangay Basak which had 260 voters in 2010 even as its total population was only 150.
In 14 more barangays, the proportion of voting population to the general population is unusually high, ranging from 70 percent to 94 percent.
For the entire Sibuco town, voting population in 2010 was 25,065 out of the 31,982 total population, or 78.4 percent.
These figures are way above the regional and national averages, noted Uy. “These should be validated.”
“In the 2010 Census of Population and Housing, the country’s voting aged population accounted for 60 percent of the total population,” a report of the National Statistics Office (NSO) said.
For the 2010 general elections, the country has 50.7 million registered voters which accounts for only 55 percent of the 92.3 million total population. In the same period, Zamboanga del Norte’s 589,956 registered voters account for 62 percent of its total population of 955,668.
Throughout the Zamboanga Peninsula region, voting population in 2010 accounted for 55 percent of total population.
In 2013, Sibuco’s voting population rose by 5,920, reaching 30,985. This represents around 24 percent jump within three years, or an 8-percent average annual growth. The increase was experienced throughout all the barangays.
The growth rate goes higher if the padded voter figures in 2010, which is used as base, is adjusted to realistic levels.
Such rate of increase does not rhyme with the average rate at which Sibuco’s general population is growing. If reckoned from 1990, the town’s population grew at 1.86 percent annually for the last 10 years. The highest population growth rate registered between 2007 and 2010, at 4.67 percent.
Assuming the growth in voting population between 2010 and 2013 is true, most of these people may have been migrants who are already voting aged when they settled in Sibuco, Uy supposed.
“But what draws these drove of people to the town?” she asked.
Despite being a 1st Class municipality, business hardly thrives in Sibuco. Although only 40 kilometers away from Zamboanga City, the lack of roads forces traders to take a circuitous 300-km land route or travel by boat.
Uy believes that in a tightly fought race, which they expect for the congressional seat in the province’s third legislative district and the governorship, Sibuco’s apparently padded voter figures will be significant.
The town’s registered voters account for about five percent of the province’s voting population, and some 13 percent in the third district.
“It is sad that we learned of this anomaly only in the tail-end of the campaign,” Uy related.
Ryan Rosauro is a veteran journalist based in Northern Mindanao who also contributes to several newspapers and online publications. Mr. Rosauro is a PCIJ fellow who has also attended several of the PCIJ’s election training seminars