PUALAS, Lanao del Sur ― Amid the heavy presence of policemen and soldiers, election officials started delisting names from this municipality's voter list following a court order that found 1,750 names to be “fictitious or fakes.”
Pualas town election officer Arang Banto said she is implementing an order from the Third Municipal Trial Court in Ganassi town in Lanao del Sur in its decision last February 27 to remove the names of 1,750 “fake voters” from the voter's list in Pualas town.
“We are removing the names one by one and manually,” Banto told reporters from the heavily guarded Pualas municipal hall last Monday.
Pualas is one of 18 towns of Lanao del Sur’s 39 municipalities that the Commission on Elections has categorized as “areas of grave concern” in the coming May 12 Senatorial and Local elections.
Last December, mayoral aspirant Al Ihsan Marohom Ibrahim filed a petition before the MTCC court in Ganassi seeking to delist 3,000 alleged fake voters in Pualas, mostly supporters of Pualas Mayor Amanoden Duol.
Banto said it would take days to complete the process of removing the “fake voters” from the voters list.
Aside from Pualas town, Army Task Force commander Colonel Noel Ian Ignes said the 17 other towns were classified as “areas of grave concern” due to their history of shootings, grenade attacks, and intense rivalry of political supporters.
“Marawi City is also categorized as an area of grave concern due to reported electoral violence on Election Day, Ignes said.
Ignes said nine towns in the province are categorized as “orange or areas of concern” while eight other towns are tagged as “yellow or areas of lease concern.” He said only four towns in Lanao del Sur have no history of violence on election day.
