[Local Vote] Voter registration for 2028: Answers to your common questions - Rappler

Already have Rappler+? Sign in to listen to groundbreaking journalism.

REGISTRATION. Cebu residents flock to the Commission on Elections office in Cebu City on November 10, 2026, as voter registration resumes for the 2028 national and local elections.

This is AI-generated. Read the article for full context. Report any errors.

The presidential, national, and local elections of 2028 are 18 months away, and prospective candidates will be filing their certificates in 11 months yet, but the poll season has technically started in the Philippines. 

On Tuesday, November 10, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) resumed the registration of voters for the 2028 exercise. 

So I guess I will also have to resume this early my Local Vote series, which I usually write only during campaign periods. 

And for this edition, I have put together answers to your most common questions on voter registration. The answers are from various and relevant documents and information from the Comelec.

I will be updating this Q&A if and when there are new information you should know. In the meantime, you can also download Rappler’s MUNI app — for free — and join the Voter Hotline channel. There, we post updates about voter issues, while Comelec personnel and representatives of election watchdogs also address voter concerns. 

The voter registration, which reopened on November 10, 2026, will close by end of day on July 30, 2027. 

That’s a good eight months and 20 days, so I hope we can avoid any last-minute rush and, with it, the usually unfair criticism against the Comelec and its processes. 

Registration days are from Tuesday to Friday, 8 am to 5 pm.  

There will be Saturdays and holidays when the Comelec or its local offices can and will schedule registrations. Remember: not all Saturdays and holidays. 

To know on which Saturdays and holidays registrations will be conducted, follow the Comelec’s official social media account or check with the election office in your city or municipality. Rappler’s Voter Hotline channel will also post advisories as they come in.  

As of September 4, 2026, these are the deactivated voters. The Comelec has uploaded lists for every city and municipality. In every list, it is indicated whether the person failed to vote in two consecutive regular elections (totally deactivated and must register again) or has transferred and therefore has an active record in another city or municipality (so decide if you want to transfer to your old locality).  

If your name is not on the list of deactivated voters, it means your registration is intact. So if you need to transfer or make changes to your record, go to your local Comelec office or to satellite registration sites. 

If the applicant doesn’t have any of these IDs, in the absence of any of the above-mentioned identification documents, he/she can submit a sworn affidavit by any fourth-degree relative. 

You don’t. The Comelec stopped issuing voter ID cards starting December 2017. This was after the House of Representative approved the bill seeking to establish a national identification system, under which a single ID would be issued to every citizen for all their government transactions. 

(Republic Act 1105 or the Philippine Identification System Act was signed into law on August 6, 2018. We all know what happened to the national ID applications and issuance — many Filipinos are still waiting for their cards after years — but that’s a column for another day.)

Here’s a detail many people overlook: Submitting an application for registration doesn’t automatically make you a registered voter. Applications will be vetted and approved by an election registration board in every city and municipality. So far, these boards meet only once every 3 months, so they deliberate on the list per quarter — an incentive for you to register early. – Rappler.com