An official of the Commission on Elections urged eligible Filipinos who are not yet registered as voters to do so in a provocative tweet as the poll body enters its second day of accepting certificates of candidacy.
Comelec Spokesperson James Jimenez, also the director of Education and Information Department, on Saturday tweeted the following and accompanied it with the hashtags “#motoka” (short for “bumota ka”) and “#votesafepilipinas.”
If you need a reason to vote, remember this: bad officials are elected into office by good people who don’t vote.
His tweet has been liked by more than 200 online users as of this writing. It has also garnered mixed reactions on the quote tweets.
“Bad officials are elected into office by educated people with bad soul,” a Twitter user said in response to Jimenez’s tweet with emojis of a grinning face and a rolling-on-the-floor laughing face.
The user also posted the hashtags “#Halalan2022 #PILIPinas #PHVote.”
“If the (number) of people registering now is any indication, you know that the current administration was partly built by ‘good people who don’t vote.’ If years back you can’t be bothered to care, let this pandemic shake you and wake you up! Register and use your vote wisely!” wrote another Twitter user.
Others countered Jimenez and argued that his tweet is “problematic.”
“That’s literally not how elections work. The whole ‘if you’re not saying NO, that means you’re saying YES’ mentality is problematic in so many ways. Until we make it so (that) registration and voting systems allow for reasonable accessibility, spare me your self-righteousness,” a Twitter user said.
Last Wednesday, Comelec Chairperson Sheriff Abas said in an interview that they have already processed 63,364,932 registered voters as of September 11.
The number is 10 million short of the projected voting population for the 2022 elections which is at 73.3 million, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.
Voter registration has been extended from its past deadline of September 30 into October 11 to 31, 2021.
COC filing of aspiring public officials, on the other hand, are slated on the first week of October.
The 2022 national elections is scheduled on May 9.