ELECTION DUTY. A total of 11 policemen assigned in Kalinga started on Friday the training to serve as special electoral boards in three precincts in the municipality of Lubuagan. The policemen will replace the teachers who withdrew their intentions to serve in the election due to the ongoing tribal conflict in the municipality. (PNA photo by Liza T. Agoot)
TABUK CITY, Kalinga – The Commission on Election (Comelec) provincial office has started the training of 18 policemen who will serve as special electoral boards for the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Election (BSKE).
“We are doing a manual election for the BSK election, different from the automated, thus the report will be manually done. The counting will also be manually done, which will require the electorate board to submit reports after the completion of the voting, counting, and the proclamation of winning officials,” Lawyer Dexter Cawis, provincial election officer, said on the sidelines of the training on Friday.
The training will focus on appreciation of ballots, duties and functions of the barangay (village) board of canvassers, voter's assistance desk, casting of votes, count of the votes, and how to accomplish the after-election processes.
Out of the 18, 11 members of the Provincial Mobile Force Company (PMFC) are scheduled to be deployed as members of the special electoral board in three voting places in Barangay Mabongtot in the municipality of Lubuagan during the October 30, 2023 election. The others are for standby in case there is a need for them to render election duty.
Of the 11, nine will serve as members of the three-man special electoral board, composed of a chairperson, a poll clerk, and a support staff.
The special electoral board will be composed of seven female and two male policemen.
There are 510 clustered precincts in the province, spread out in 153 villages.
The deployment will be done in areas usually facilitated by policemen due to refusal of teachers to serve at the voting place because of tribal wars.
Mae Lynne Gallamoy-Oyando, election officer in the municipality of Lubuagan, in her lecture during the day, said policemen started handling the precincts in Mabongtot during the 2013 BSKE, and was followed during the national election in 2016 and the BSKE in 2018.
Relatively, the provincial election officer of Abra has informed the Comelec regional office of some teachers’ withdrawal of intention to serve as EB members in at least 21 polling precincts.
In a reply to questions sent by the Philippine News Agency (PNA), Comelec-Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) Director Julius Torres on Thursday confirmed that teachers from eight precincts in the capital town Bangued, two in the municipality of Lagayan, and 14 in the municipality of Pilar have asked to be relieved from their election-related tasks.
He said there will be policemen in Abra who will be trained to render special election duties to replace the teachers.
Meanwhile, Cawis said the province has a total of 157,220 registered voters and all the positions in the 153 villages have candidates. (PNA)
