Comelec starts giving out poll honoraria

Following the elections last Monday, local offices of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) have started distributing the honoraria to the more than 40,000 electoral board members in the region.

Acting Comelec-7 Director Veronico Petalcorin said the commission's local counterparts are now busy giving out the honoraria to the teachers and non-teaching volunteers who served during the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections on May 14.

“They (electoral board members) are receiving transportation allowance together with their honorarium,” he told The FREEMAN over a phone interview yesterday.

Petalcorin said the electoral board members are paid through cash cards or hard cash. He said the total expenses for their honoraria, including allowances, may reach more than P250 million.

The giving out of honoraria here in the region already started on May 15, a day after the elections.

Petalcorin said each electoral board was composed of a chairperson, a poll clerk, and a third member.

The chairperson is expected to receive P6,000 as honoraria while the other two will receive P5,000 each.

The three members are also given P1,000 as travel allowance.

Petalcorin said there are a total of 40,008 election board members in the region but not all are teachers.

Majority or the 35,386 are public school teachers while there are 896 private school teachers.

The remaining 3,726 are non-teaching volunteers. An existing law, particularly Republic Act 10756 or the Election Service Reform Act, allows the appointment of volunteers as it is not compulsory already for public school teachers to render election duties.

These volunteers can also receive additional allowances and insurance like the P1,000 travel allowance, P50,000 worth of legal indemnification package, P200,000 maximum medical assistance insurance, and P500,000 maximum insurance for election-related death.

The teachers and volunteers were tasked during election day to watch over the voting, manually count the ballots, and keep their precincts secure until the vote counts are delivered to the board of canvassers.