Tagum City tries PHL’s first synchronized purok elections

DAVAO CITY – The city of palm in the Davao Region would embark on the country’s first real and synchronized elections in the purok level, inspired by the successful barangay elections on Monday (October 28).

Cromwell Bonghanoy, chief information officer of Tagum City, said the city government has already ask the Commission on Elections to confer and guide the newly elected set of barangay officials on how to conduct a coordinated and simultaneous elections in the level of the puroks, and how to constitute the set of election officers.

A purok normally is composed of a purok chairperson and seven members of the purok council.

“But the practice in the Philippines commonly redounds to appointments by the barangay officials. No election would happen in the puroks,” Bonghanoy told BusinessMirror on Tuesday.

Tagum City, 53 kilometers north of here, has 23 barangays and more than 400 puroks.

So far, only Tagum City would ever embark on a real elections in the level of the puroks, “with filing of candidacies [on November 4-8], a campaign period [November 11-16], and a designated election day”, he added.

The city previously allow the puroks to designate their own set of leaders “but usually, it would be the barangay officials who appoint them”.

“This loses the essence of a real democracy where people elect their own preferred leaders,” he said.

Last week, City Mayor Allan Rellon designated the purok election day on November 17, two weeks from the previously designated November 3.  Voting would be done from 7:00 am to 3:00 pm.

Bonghanoy said that Rellon designed a synchronized elections down to the puroks, to ensure that “the people’s will are really expressed down to the selection of the purok leaders that would represent them in the barangays”.

Bonghanoy said that the Comelec and the barangay officials would be expected to come up with the final blueprint on how to conduct the purok elections, with one option already floated around that the barangay may constitute its own Comelec body to oversee the elections.

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