No 40,000 double registants in Davao - poll exec

There are no 40,000 double registrants in Davao contrary to the claim of an election watchdog, a Commission on Elections (Comelec) official said on Monday. Interviewed by reporters, Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said he personally went to Davao City over the weekend to investigate and found out that the issue “has been blown out of proportion." “If you look at the records, there was a cleansing... there’s no such thing as 40,000 registrants," he said, adding that he has documents to prove it. The country will have its first ever nationwide automated elections on May 10. The claim that there are around 40,000 double registrants in Davao City and Davao del Sur came from the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), who also said the figure could be just “the tip of the iceberg." The Comelec had earlier discovered 43,000 double and multiple registrants in Calabarzon and in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Larrazabal also disputed the report of militant watchdog Kontra Daya that the voters’ list for the May elections is padded by five million. He appealed to the groups to be more sensitive in coming up with such pronouncements. “You just don’t throw figures around as if you’re not serious... the elections is serious," he said. The Comelec is set to create a watchlist that would prevent suspected double or multiple registrants from voting more than once in the May 10 polls. A total of 50,723,734 are qualified to vote in the May polls. - Kimberly Jane Tan/KBK, GMANews.TV