About Us Core Themes Activities FPEuSblDiciaaltoiognuse on Globalization Online Materials FES International Policy Analysis Unit First Time Voters: A Case of Continuing Political Disenfranchisement By Jonas Bagas, Akbayan! Citizens Action Party A few months before the scheduled termination of voter’s registration in December 2000, several youth activist organizations denounced the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) for its seeming lack of effort to mount an intensive information campaign on the process. At the time, the registration period coincided with the impeachment trial of then-President Joseph Estrada. Considering how the trial overshadowed other issues, the youth activists were concerned that lack of public awareness of the registration process could lead to the disenfranchisement of approximately 4.5 million first-time voters[i]. The youth organizations launched various campaigns to have the registration process extended, but the COMELEC refused. The effort regained momentum after the fall of the Estrada administration in January 2001. Heady from the success of“people power” and cognizant of the youth’s active participation in the movement to oust a corrupt regime, newly installed President Gloria Macapagal­Arroyo, other politicians, sociopolitical institutions and civil society organizations joined in the call for the holding of a special registration for first-time voters. However, despite various protests, the filing of a case against COMELEC before the Supreme Court, and a rare presidential intervention to enjoin the Congress and the Senate to legislate a two-day special registration, the efforts to enlist the disenfranchised voters failed. The highly disorganized and divided electoral commissioners disagreed over their capability to hold another voter’s registration. In an effort to save an embattled institution from further shame, the commissioners ultimately maintained that the first-time voters did not want to enlist in the first place, and thus not be considered“disenfranchised.” Barely two years later, and with a new Chairperson at the helm, the COMELEC seems bent on committing the same mistake. On January 15, 2003, it unanimously suspended the registration of voters. The decision treaded on a very weak legal basis, since the COMELEC possessed no explicit power to change the nationally mandated schedule of registration. Republic Act 8189, or the Voters Registration Act of 1997, unequivocally sets the schedule of the registration process. First, the registration shall be continuing and conducted every working day during regular working hours and, second, that no registration of voters shall be conducted 120 days before regular elections and 90 days in cases of special elections. Several months later, the COMELEC announced the resumption of registration until October 31, 2003. From the Margins to the Mainstream: Institutionalizing Youth Participation What characterizes youth political participation in the Philippines? At the height of the campaign for special registration in 2001, opponents argued that the youth’s growing apathy was to blame for their failure to register. Indeed, if one were to look at the formal and informal venues for youth participation, one would easily conclude that Philippine politics is receptive toward youth participation, unlike many countries in Southeast Asia. As a sector, the youth have consistently taken up a variety of issues such as students’ rights and welfare, human rights violations, corruption, and the like. The mode of