The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Wednesday announced that a 10-day nationwide voter registration for the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) in December will start in late July.

Interviewed during the weekly Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum, Comelec Chairperson George Garcia urged the public, especially the new voters, to register to be able to participate in the BSKE scheduled on Dec. 1.

“Nationwide, we will reopen voter registration for BSKE. Remember, it was suspended on Sept. 30 because there [was a midterm] election,” he said.

“Those who want to reactivate, transfer registration, register as new voters, they have only 10 days to register. Last week of July to first week of August.”

Garcia said he expects some 1 million new voters to register during the 10-day period.

“If our current voters are 68,431,965, let’s say we can register 1 million in 10 days, we will have 69.5 million voters for BSKE. That is still a very conservative estimate of those who will register in 10 days,” he said.

At the same time, Garcia said there will be no voter registration in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) despite the conduct of the Bangsamoro Parliamentary Election (BPE) in October.

“We will not have registration in BARMM. We don’t want to create the impression that those who register in the 10 days from July to August will vote for BPE,” he said.

“Registration in the BARMM is suspended. So that those who will vote for BPE are only those voters in the NLE (national and local elections). There will be no resumption of voter registration in the BARMM although there will be election in October.” (PNA)