‘Poll machines can cope with 12-hour blackouts’

Amid prospects of brownouts disrupting the 2010 automated elections, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) reassured the public Friday its counting machines can cope with power failures - but only for about 12 hours.

Comelec law department head Ferdinand Rafanan said they have also drawn up safety nets to cope with possible problems in the polls, particularly with their Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines. "Even if there is a brownout, all our PCOS-Optical Mark Read machines have batteries that can last some 12 hours," Rafanan said in Filipino over dwIZ radio. Rafanan chided doomsayers for insinuating that the Comelec is not competent enough to handle these problems. He did not elaborate on these solutions, however. [Read more about automated polls here.] "We have foreseen possible problems, and put in place backup plans for each problems. The Comelec is thinking, it has foresight and it has solutions," he said. Rafanan added they have thought of other possible scenarios, and have worked out solutions for them. Last July, the Comelec said it would tap some 80,000 information technology (IT) people to handle the voting machines. Anticipating the possibility that not enough public school teachers would be able to fill the required staff, the Comelec plans to tap IT personnel from various government agencies. [See: Comelec to tap 80,000 IT people for 2010 elections] Earlier this week, Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes warned the country would be plagued by widespread power interruptions noting that Visayas and Mindanao have already been experiencing brownouts. On Thursday, Malacañang ordered the Department of Energy (DOE) to back up its assurances of a zero-brownout situation during the election period. “I heard from Sec. Reyes that his department is making sure there will be no brownouts, and especially no blackouts. It is the DOE’s job to make sure our energy supply will be stable and sufficient. Not only that, it should remain affordable," Cabinet Secretary Silvestre Bello III said in Filipino in a separate dzXL radio interview. Brownouts created by Malacañang But Sen. Panfilo Lacson said Reyes’ prediction of brownouts in 2010 hints of a No-Election (No-El) scenario being cooked up by Malacañang. Lacson told reporters that Reyes’ comment on possible brownouts was ill-advised, adding the timing of his claim was “suspect" if not tainted with “malice." “Pwedeng sabihing kinukundisyon niya ang utak natin na magbabrownout sa eleksyon (His statements can be interpreted as an attempt to condition the public’s mind that there will be brownouts during the election) and that’s very dangerous," Lacson said. "We will have computerized elections in 2010, the computerized counting machines will have backup power supply but I don’t think it will be enough," Lacson adedd. - GMANews.TV