ZAMBOANGA CITY: Hundreds of residents in the southern port city of Zamboanga blamed the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for their failure to register as voters on Wednesday, the deadline set by the poll body for new registrants.

Locals said that they were told to wait outside the office of the Comelec for hours only to be told that they cannot be accommodated anymore.

Officials of the Comelec said that they stopped issuing registration forms to allow the processing of papers for those who registered on Tuesday.

Thousands have waited outside the office of the Comelec at the Joaquin Enriquez Memorial Sports Complex and many of them were ferried from villages by followers of politicians.

It was not immediately known from the central office of the Comelec whether the non-issuance of registration forms to voters in Zamboanga was illegal.

But one voter said that the general rule is to accommodate everyone who wants to register.

“If indeed, forms were released Tuesday to those who failed to register that day, which is contrary to their own rule [that day] that they will only release application forms to those inside the office,” he told The Manila Times.

He said that the poll body should have distributed application forms on Wednesday and continues the registration beyond the 3 p.m. cut-off time for as long as they are within the 30-meter radius of the office.

“They can continue to register beyond that time even up to midnight or even up to the following day. This is similar to the rule that on election day, the election committee should accommodate all voters for as long as they are within the 30 meter radius from the precinct, just so all the voters will be able to vote, even if that will be beyond closing of the precinct time. But no, they were in a hurry to stop working after 5 p.m. and those who want to register after that time can go to hell,” he said.

“There is this naughty rumor that somebody called some Comelec officials at the grand-stand for them to stop registering these voters because they were ferried there by supporters of a rival candidate,” he added.