Mindanaotoday.com | Oro voter’s list cleansing starts
By: URIEL QUILINGUING
Cagayan de Oro City – Names of the dead will no longer be in the list of registered voters to be posted for this year’s October 30 village and youth council (Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan) elections.
City Election Officer Ramil P. Acol said Wednesday, June 7, cleansing the voter’s list has started and this would go on until the end of July, this year.
This, after a data-sharing agreement between the City Government and the Commission on Elections was forged Wednesday (May 31) last week.
Mayor Rolando A. Uy and himself had affixed their signatures on a document as required under the Data Privacy Law (Republic Act No. 10173) that took effect in 2012.
City Civil Registrar Evangeline Tapangan and Registration Officer Alice Theresa M. Gil also signed the data-sharing agreement as witnesses.
The local civil registrar’s office is the repository of vital information of all city residents, including death certificates of those who had died.
But the data-sharing agreement between the City Hall and City Comelec here has to be renewed after five years, as stipulated in the document.
Four months ago, Tapangan told the Mindanao Today they used to prepare a list of those who died every month and submit it to the City Comelec.
But the Data Privacy Law prevented them, unless there is a data-sharing agreement, detailing the responsibilities of both parties, and in keeping the vital information with utmost confidentiality.
Last year, there were 6,947 deaths in this city, including 109 babies.
Prior to the data-sharing agreement, the City Comelec would require family members to show the death certificate so that the name of their dead would be removed from the voters’ list.
As January 31, the City Comelec has 390,267 in its voter’s list.
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