Registrants crowd venues in QC, Manila as registration nears deadline

Registrants filled malls and other designated venues on the second to the last day of registration for the 2016 elections, with some even waiting for 10 hours to beat the October 31 deadline, reports said.

In his report on "24 Oras" on Friday, GMA News' JP Soriano said long lines formed in satellite offices in Manila, with one of them extending to several levels of a mall.

One registrant criticized the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for the alleged snail-paced processing of the papers of some 900 registrants who made the cut-off for District 5, which covers 182 barangays.

"Lahat ng mga tao meron mga ginagawa 'yan. Iniwanan ang kanilang trabaho, ang sweldo nila, ginive-up nila for this day. There has to be a better way than this," the woman said.

In a separate report, Raffy Tima said irate registrants in Quezon City also complained of slow process, while others blasted the chaos inside the registration centers, noting people who cut into lines or use fake priority numbers to get ahead of others.

"Hindi po sa amin galing 'to. Hindi ho kayo sa amin kumuha niyan," Comelec District 4 officer Leo Vergara was shown as saying to several registrants at the Quezon City Hall as confiscated fake priority numbers.

Vergara went on to explain later that registrants who failed to complete their biometrics update on Thursday added to the volume of people who lined up on Friday.

Despite the winding lines, this year's registration period was noticeably more organized than the last day of registration for the 2010 general elections, the report said, citing local Comelec officials.

"Yun hong kamamaya-mamaya natin, dumating po tayo sa point na ganito, nasa last day na po tayo," Vergara said. —Rie Takumi/KBK, GMA News