MANILA - Key to a clean and fair 2010 polls is the voters list, which is still includes the dead and "flying" voters, an election monitor coalition said Monday.

Bantay Eleksyon (BE) told a press conference that it is questioning the integrity of Commission on Election's (Comelec) voter’s list, which they claim is “far from being trouble-free”.

According to the BE report, the Comelec was “not able to remove multiple and erroneous entries, and/or deceased from the list,” citing the 691 centenarians identified with dubious information in Taguig City, and the 12 flying voters reported during an explosion last October in the Comelec office in Marawi City.

“Cheaters were still able to work around the registration process, manipulating the system in their favor. To some extent, the voters list for the 2010 elections could be padded due to reported cases of flying registrants,” the report said.

Flying voters are persons who resort to multiple registrations at the behest of unscrupulous politicians.

While the BE commended Comelec for its efforts in cleansing the voters list, which includes delisting of a number of unqualified voters and establishing satellite registration offices, it stressed that “the commendation should be qualified as far as delisting of dead voters is concerned.”

The delisting proved to be ineffective, according to the report, as it was only able to delist voters who died in the locality, and not those from outside. “This is primarily because the local Comelec does not have the mechanism to work or coordinate with the Civil Registries of other cities, towns or municipalities,” the report said.

BE coordinator Andie Lasala said that all these issues on the credibility of the voter’s list might “undermine a free and peaceful election.” “Bagama’t may bagong sistema, kaya pa ring mandaya,” Lasala reminded.

Registration

Lasala said that the group has been asking the Comelec for 3 years already to conduct a general registration, in which everybody, including those who have already registered, will be required to register all over again. This, according to him, will ensure the thorough cleaning of the voter’s list.

The proposal was rejected, according to Lasala, due to “issues on time and cost.”

Lasala said that the voters list currently in use have been activated for 12 years already, and is being sustained by a continuing registration, which gives Comelec “burden in rearranging.”

Rebecca Malay, secretary general of Consortium on Electoral Reforms (CER), said that there is no provision in any election laws that endorse general registration, hence the need for one. “We need some champions in Congress who will do that,” she said.

'Relatively clean'

Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said that even the commission recognize that the voters list is not entirely clean. “The voters list is as clean as it can be. There is no such thing as a 100% clean list of voters,” he said.

The list becomes “polluted,” Jimenez said, because “people keep on dying” even after delisting.

Jimenez assured that the list that they have now is “trustworthy” and “relatively clean.”

What the Comelec is putting focus on now, according to Jimenez, is setting up a filter on election day so that “the slug will be separated from those clean.”

“What matters is we will achieve one-person-one-vote,” he said.