KUDOS FOR JOB WELL DONE

JAY VINCENT I. QUIZON

The Department of Education (DepEd) has expressed its heartfelt gratitude to all the teachers and personnel who served in the 2019 national and local elections.

DepEd officials are grateful for teachers for continuing to be on the frontline of the foremost exercise of democracy in the country notwithstanding the demands and challenges the season entails.

A total of 526,686 teachers and DepEd personnel were deputized by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) to play a crucial part in the polls, 257,304 of which are teachers who served as members of the Electoral Board.

As for the general assessment of this year’s election, DepEd described the election as secure and peaceful.

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, were received by a task force created for the elections.

The bulk of information received by the task force monitoring and operations center came from the use of the DepEd election monitoring application. 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.

The ETF also used others means of receiving information including emails, fax, SMS, and calls.

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The author is Teacher II at Pampanga High School.