President Rodrigo Duterte has signed a law extending the voters’ registration deadline for the May 9, 2022 national and local elections for another 30 days.

Under Republic Act 11591 (RA) 11591 inked Thursday, Duterte set the last day for the filing of registration of voters for the 2022 polls “30 days after the effectivity” of the new law.

RA 11591, a copy of which was released on Friday, takes effect immediately after its publication in the Official Gazette or a newspaper of general circulation.

The Senate and the House of Representatives on Monday night unanimously approved a measure seeking the extension of voter registration deadline for the 2022 elections for one more month.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) originally set the deadline for the nationwide voter registration on Sept. 30.

Lawmakers have sought the extension of voters’ registration, saying nearly six months of the registration was lost when the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic began and quarantine measures were imposed.

According to the data released by the Comelec, there are now 61 million registered voters, including 3,681,958 new registrants, for the 2022 elections.

The figure, however, is still short of the 73.3 million projected voting population reported by the Philippine Statistics Authority in February 2021.

On Wednesday, the Comelec approved the extension of voter registration from Oct. 11 to 30.

The extended voter registration would be held from Monday to Friday during office hours.

For this period, all services like reactivation and registration for new voters will be offered. (PNA)