The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has identified at least 92 common poster areas in Bacolod City’s 61 barangays for the May 14 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections.

City Election Registrar Mavil Majarucon-Sia said that under the election rules, one common poster area is designated for every 5,000 registered voters in a particular barangay.

The identified poster areas are barangay halls, gymnasiums, street corners or entrances, basketball courts, open spaces, vacant lots, and roadsides.

As of yesterday, all the city’s urban villages — from Barangays 1 to 41 — have one common poster area each.

The remaining 20, which are the rural barangays, have usually more than one common poster area since most of them have the biggest number of voters in Bacolod.

Barangays Mansilingan, Singcang-Airport, Tangub, and Villamonte, each of which has about 20,000 registered voters, have four designated common poster areas each.

Banago, Bata, Estefania, Granada, Handumanan, Mandalagan, and Taculing have three common poster areas each.

Majarucon-Sia said that in case a candidate has campaign materials mounted or posted in places not identified as common poster areas before the start of the campaign period, he or she must remove them once campaign starts.

She added that if election personnel find campaign materials in non-designated poster areas during the campaign period, they will take photos and send these to the Legal Department of the Comelec’s central office for appropriate action. (PNA)