Mindanaotoday.com | Marawi plebiscite posts high turnout
By: Uriel Quilinguing
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – The Commission on Elections disclosed Saturday, March 18, a high turnout of votes from a plebiscite that day for the proposed creation of two basic political units in Marawi City.
But the Comelec has yet to officially announce how many voted for “yes” and for “no,” out of the 1,462 voters of Baganga and Sagonsongan, from which Baganga II and Datu Dalidigan new barangay (village) governments would be carved out.
Comelec chairman George Garcia earlier said they were expecting over 90-percent turnout – way above the 50-percent minimum people’s mandate requirement in the creation of a new barangay.
As early as 10 a.m., 408 out of 471 registered voters in two precincts in Bito Elementary School had already voted.
Commissioner-in-charge Aimee Ferolino joined Chairman Garcia in supervising the balloting that started 7 a.m. and ended 3 p.m.
Baganga and Sagonsongan have a combined 13,457 inhabitants, based on latest headcount by the Philippine Statistics Authority – more than half them internally displaced persons (IDPs) during the 2017 Marawi siege.
As of now, Marawi has 96 barangays, 24 of these are within the 250-hectare “ground zero” of the five-month long armed conflict that displaced 17,793 families, according to the Task Force Bangon Marawi (TFBM).
After the liberation of Marawi from terrorists in October 2017, TFBM set up four relocation sites, one is in Sagonsongan situated north of the “ground zero” while the other three are in Tolali, Papandayan, and Gadungan in the south, adjacent to Baganga along near Lake Lanao.
“A barangay may be created out of a contiguous territory which has at least 2,000 inhabitants (as certified by the PSA),” Section 385 of the Local Government Code (Republic Act No. 7160) states.
But the LGC further stipulated that the creation of a new barangay must not reduce the population of the original barangay/s to less than the minimum.
The Comelec has set the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (village and youth council) elections on October 30, this year. (MT)
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