Comelec all set for BSKE

Days before the May 14 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan polls, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has expressed readiness to conduct the elections.

Comelec Acting Chairman Al Parreno said they are ready but refused to quantify their readiness in a press briefing Friday at their Command Center in Intramuros, Manila.

“On audit matters, we are ready in all these matters,” he said.

He said so far they already deployed most of the election materials and that they are just finishing some minor things in the National Capital Region (NCR).

When it comes to the approximately 500,000 teachers who will serve as Board of Election Tellers on Election Day, Parreno said their deployment has been determined already.

Parreno added that even the cash cards for the honorarium of the teachers are already being deployed.

As to security augmentation from the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, he said based on their meetings with them they are also ready. Teofisto Elnas, Director of the Election and Barangay Affairs Department advised voters to find their precinct number and voting center days before the actual polls. “Before Monday, voters should already know their precinct number and voting center. They can call their Election Officer to inquire or call our hotline and we will assist them in looking for it,” he said.

Meanwhile, Elnas revealed that their Command Center received a report of candidates being persuaded to withdraw their candidacy.

But, he did not elaborate saying they are still validating the information.

“It’s just a raw data from a concerned citizen,” said Elnas. “Once we are able to validate it, we will endorse it to the Law Department for further study,” he added.

Also yesterday, the Comelec destroyed the excess, spoiled and defective official ballots produced during printing operations for the May 14, 2018 polls.

Comelec Spokesman James Jimenez explained why they need to destroy more than a million ballots.

“Under the law, Comelec can only produce one is to one ballot. During the printing it happens sometimes that there is an excess or errors. Now these ballots looked okay but in fact there is an error. That's what we destroyed earlier. We need to destroy it to avoid possible misuse. Thats also the reason we asked the media to cover for people to know the number of ballots involved and what we did to it so there wont be any questions later,” he said.