Heroes once more
VOX populi, vox Dei.
The voice of the people is the voice of God.
After a rigorous campaign to earn votes, finally the candidates received the mandate of the people who judged them based on numerous reasons, some of them communal, personal, both or just vote for the sake of doing it.
As practiced in previous elections, DepEd teachers and personnel served as electoral board members (formerly board of election tellers/board of election inspectors) and manned the synchronized polls in the clustered precinct levels using the Votes-Counting Machine (VCM)
The Department of Education (DepEd) headed by Secretary Leonor Briones expressed its heartfelt gratitude to all the teachers and personnel who served in the 2019 national and local elections.
Briones thanked them for continuing to be on the frontline of the foremost exercise of democracy in the country notwithstanding the demands and challenges the season entails particularly in critical areas where the places were under the COMELEC control due to previous incidence of violence and conflict.
Based from the information provided by DepEd, a total of 526,686 teachers and DepEd personnel was deputized by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to play a crucial part in the polls. From the said number, 257,304 are teachers who served as members of the Electoral Board.
Deped Undersecretary for Administration and Election Task Force (ETF) Chairman
Alain Del Pascua, in a report, described the election as secure and peaceful.
Pascua added that based on the report handed by different election task force from school, district, division to regional level through the Deped election monitoring application, the result was generally orderly and peaceful election except for several occurrences of irregularities in some areas especially the malfunctioning VCMs and SD cards.
According to Pascua who spearheaded the conduct of clustered conferences in four areas in the country, the app served and scaled multiple information monitoring uses. It also has an election menu (pre-election activities, election proper, and post-election activities, and other related incidents/matters). These information are automatically consolidated in the Deped Central Server for monitoring, analysis, and immediate response in real time. Moreover, the ETF also used others means of receiving information including emails, fax, SMS, and calls.
From those report taken by using the app, the ETF at Deped Central Office, received a total of 131,526 reports ranging from cases of unpaid honoraria, unpaid allowances, injuries and harassments, damages to school facilities, notes on VCM malfunction, transmission issues, marking pen issues, final testing and sealing issues, as well as other complaints.
With their dedicated service using the app provided, Pascua also thanked the members of the ETF nationwide for their commitment and sacrifice in ensuring the safety of teachers and other personnel during the elections.
This Corner hopes that bickering and relationships soured by the recently conducted elections will be stopped and mutual cooperation for the good of their constituents will prevail because one needs no position for him to serve but just a genuine heart and commitment for the betterment of the lives of the people they serve.