THE city elections office of Dagupan City said the election here was generally peaceful and orderly from the start up to close of voting, with no untoward incident that happened.

City Elections Officer Vanessa Micu-Roncal said she is happy that there was no report of violence whatsoever, nor intimidation of voters by supporters of candidates.

She said she heard reports of rampant vote-buying, adding that everytime there was a report about this, he coordinated with the Philippine National Police to check the same but added that when the police go and check it, they did not find anyone doing vote-buying.

Roncal admitted that the common problems encountered by her office were voters who cannot find their names in the master list of voters and who cannot locate their voting centers.

All these, he said probably number around 100 to 150 and called this “very minimal”.

She said all these voters trooped to the City Elections Office and were told that they really cannot find their names for their failure to vote in the last two political exercises.

Roncal said that based on the election law, if a person failed to vote in two regular elections, his or her name is automatically de-activated from the voters’ list.

Another reason why their names could not be found anymore in the masterlist was because they transferred their respective residence from one barangay to another without informing the Comelec.

The others, she added, went abroad and stayed there for a long time but who now want to exercise their rights of suffrage but could not find their names in the list anymore. (PNA)