Congress bet in CDO denies padding voter’s list

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Philippines — Congressional aspirant Raineir Joaquin Uy, chief of Barangay Carmen here, has denied allegations by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) that he caused the padding of the urban village’s list of voters to favor his candidacy for a seat in the House of Representatives in next year’s midterm polls.

Comelec’s law department had sought Uy’s disqualification as a candidate, claiming that Uy was mostly responsible for the 44.41 percent jump in Carmen’s number of registered voters through the barangay certifications he issued.

“There is a high number of barangay certifications issued by the respondent without verifying if the applicants were indeed residents of Barangay Carmen,” the poll body alleged.

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The poll body noted that from 39,359 voters as of Oct. 30, 2023, the number rose to 56,837 as of Nov. 11. It added that Comelec’s local office received 21,854 voter registration applications, of which 8,218 used the barangay certification issued by Uy, which fetches a P50 fee per applicant, to back their residency claims.

Currently, the barangay certification is among the valid documents that can be presented by voter applicants in a certain locality.

No coercion, fraud

In a statement on Saturday, Uy asserted he “did not engage in any fraudulent means to encourage or force Carmen residents who had not yet registered to do so.”

“[They were] merely fulfilling their civic duty and aiming to exercise their right to vote, which is a fundamental pillar of democracy,” Uy explained.

He called on the newly registered voters in Carmen “to come forward and affirm that they were neither coerced nor unduly persuaded to register just to be able to vote in May 2025.”

“It should also be understood that issuing certificates of residency is not illegal, as such documents are required for various other legitimate purposes,” Uy pointed out.

Uy noted that many of those seeking to register as voters in Carmen are “low-income workers whose earnings rely on daily attendance at their employment sites under a ‘no work, no pay’ arrangement.”

While Comelec said that it had created a task force to investigate the allegations, Uy said the complaint by the law department could have stemmed from allegations of irregularities in the issuance of barangay certificates hurled against him by rival Rep. Lordan Suan.

Uy, son of Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Rolando Uy, was defeated by Suan in the 2022 congressional race. He staged a political comeback in 2023 as Carmen village chief, defeating Suan’s father, Agapito Jr.