The Commission on Elections (Comelec) decided Saturday to forego its plan to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its December 15 decision extending voters’ registration for the May 10, 2010 polls to January 9, 2010.

Thus, the offices of its election officers (EOs) in 120 cities and 1,514 municipalities nationwide will resume accepting applications for registration on Monday, December 21, and on December 22, 23, 28, and 29.

The Comelec en banc, instead of drafting a motion for reconsideration for immediate, approved Resolution No. 8719 designating December 21, 22, 23, and 29 as the dates for the filing of applications for registration, January 4, 2010 for the posting of the list of applications, January 6 for the filing of opposition to the applications for registration, and January 9 for the hearing for approval or disapproval of the applications by the Election Registration Board (ERB).

Comelec en banc Resolution 8719 sets the filing of petitions for inclusion and exclusion of voters in the list not later than January 15, 2010.

The Resolution, signed by Comelec Chairman Jose A.R. Melo and Commissioners Rene V. Sarmiento, Nicodemo T. Ferrer, Lucenito N. Tagle, Armando C. Velasco, and Elias R. Yusoph, said Sec. 3 (a) of Republic Act 8189 or The Voters’ Registration Act of 1997, refers to registration as the “act of accomplishing and filing of a sworn application for registration by a qualified voter before the election officer of the city or municipality where he resides and including the same in the book of registered voters upon approval by the Election Registration Board (ERB).”

The Comelec prohibits the EOs from conducting satellite registration.

It likewise directed that no application for transfer of registration records, reactivation, and changes/correction of entries in the registration records or reinstatement of names in the list of voters shall be filed.

“The information technology department (ITD) shall develop the appropriate program to segregate the records of registered voters as of the November 16, 2009 ERB hearing from those whose applications will be approved on Jan. 9, and provide all election officers with the instructions for the generation of a separate supplemental list of voters in posted Computerized Voters List (PCVL) format,” the Comelec said.

All regional election directors were directed by the Comelec to ensure that the program developed by ITD is installed in the Data Capturing Machines (DCMs) before their use in the reopening of the registration of voters.