DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/04 March) – Davao City, home to the lone Mindanawon Presidential candidate, Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, is the vote-richest among Mindanao’s 27 provinces and 33 cities, with nearly a million voters, followed by Bukidnon and South Cotabato, records from the Commission on Elections (Comelec) show.
Mindanao has12.63 million registered voters out of the country’s 54.36 million, according to the Comelec’s “Philippine 2016 Voters Profile” as of November 2015.
The vote-richest are Davao City which has 873,670 voters or over a hundred thousand more than Bukidnon’s 765,898 and South Cotabato’s 724,325. It is also more than Bohol’s 798,768, Albay’s 742,204 and Tarlac’s 739,526.
The vote-poorest in Mindanao – all under a hundred thousand voters — are Camiguin island which has 57,570 voters, Isabela City in Basilan which is classified by Comelec as a “special province,” has 68,450 and Dinagat Islands province has 69,051.
Of Mindanao’s 33 cities, four – Davao, Zamboanga, Cagayan de Oro and Iligan — are lumped into the provincial vote count even as they are not component cities of Davao del Sur, Zamboanga del Sur, Misamis Oriental and Lanao del Norte, respectively.
In fact, these four cities have their respective representatives in Congress – three for Davao City, two each for Zamboanga and Cagayan de Oro, and one for Iligan.
Comelec records show Davao del Sur has a total of 1,247,362 voters but out of this number, 873,670 are Davao City voters, more than twice Davao del Sur’s 373,692.
Digos is the component city of Davao del Sur.
Davao City’s voting population is also more than twice that of Makati City’s (397, 587) home to Presidential candidate and incumbent Vice President Jejomar Binay, and nine times more than Roxas City’s (95,061), hometown of the administration’s Presidential bet, Mar Roxas. Capiz, the province where Roxas City belongs, has 475,382 voters.
Comelec records also show Zamboanga del Sur has 975,950 voters but Zamboanga City, which is not a component city, accounts for 412,795, leaving only 563,155 for the province which has Pagadian as component city.
Misamis Oriental is listed as having 863,160 voters but Cagayan de Oro which is not a component city, accounts for 305,321. Misamis Oriental has two component cities: Gingoog and El Salvador.
Lanao del Norte, on the other hands, is listed as having 489,436 voters with Iligan, which is not a component city, accounting for 165,330.
Isabela City and Cotabato City have been classified by the Comelec as “special provinces” because their votes are listed separately from the provinces they are identified with – provinces that are part of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
Isabela and Cotabato City did not vote for inclusion in the ARMM plebiscites in 1989 and 2001.
Isabela (68,450 voters) is geographically within Basilan, ARMM but is part of Region 9 (Zamboanga region) while Cotabato City (103,530 voters) is geographically within Maguindanao, ARMM but is part of Region 12 or Southwestern Mindanao.
Below is the table of Mindanao’s voting population – 27 provinces, the non-component cities of Davao, Zamboanga, Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, and the cities of Cotabato and Isabela which are classified by Comelec as “special provinces.” The votes of the component cities are included in the provincial count.
Out of the country’s 54.36 million voters, 55.95% are in Luzon while Visayas and Mindanao account for the remaining 44.05%.
Luzon has 30,417,790 or 55.95% of the voters, Mindanao has 12,629,265 or 23.23% and Visayas has 11,316,789 or 20.82%. (Carolyn O. Arguillas / MindaNews)
