LAS Piñas voters have approved the resetting of the boundaries of the 20 barangays in the city, in a plebiscite conducted Saturday by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in the southern Metro Manila city.
Turnout was low, at 19.88 percent, which Comelec Chairman George Garcia said was not a surprise because the issue is not “highly charged.”
Based on certificates of canvass (COC) released early yesterday by the Comelec,
41,493 voters approved City Ordinance No. 1941-23 which delineates the territorial boundaries of the 20 barangays while 19,498 voters rejected it.
The ordinance, passed by the Las Piñas City Council in 2023, defines the boundaries of the 20 barangays in accordance with the cadastral survey of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The survey was approved by the DENR in March 2015.
The ordinance said the 20 barangays “have not been properly identified such that there are barangays whose land areas are not contiguous and/or overlapping with another barangay.”
It also said “confusion in the territorial boundaries of the barangays is being encountered which could cause disputes, or be subject of disputes, especially since the cadastral mapping in 1980 for the barangays conflicted with the boundaries as set forth in the Presidential Decrees.”
The Las Piñas City Plebiscite Board of Canvassers (PBOC),which canvassed votes from all 585 plebiscite returns, said, “We, hereby, proclaim that the ordinance delineating the territorial boundaries of the 20 barangays of Las Piñas City to conform with the approved Cadastral Survey of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) completed in March 2015, pursuant to the City Ordinance No. 1941-23 dated April 24, 2023 was ratified and approved by the majority of the votes cast in the plebiscite.”
A total of 61,237 voters cast their votes out of the 308,059 registered voters in Las Piñas City for a voter turnout of 19.88 percent.
Garcia, on the low turnout, said, “A plebiscite does not usually invite much interest of the affected electorate, so the low voter turnout is expected, although not this low. Maybe the issue is not as highly charged as in other places.”
He, however, welcomed the holding of an orderly plebiscite in Las Piñas City.
“Our only consolation is that it was a very peaceful electoral exercise,” said Garcia.
