Comelec needs bolder voter ed drive—poll exec

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) needs to be more aggressive in its voter education campaign if it wants the country's first ever fully-automated elections to go smoothly, an official of the poll body admitted Wednesday. Ferdinand Rafanan, head of the Comelec's law department, told Lower House members at the hearing on poll automation that he agrees with their call for a more aggressive and systematic voters education program to prevent misunderstandings and foul-ups on election day itself, May 10. The hearing on poll automation was conducted by the House oversight committee. "There is going to be a roadshow and there's going to be endorsement from various personalities," Rafanan said of the Comelec's current voter education drive. He also said the poll body is now training its people in the field, particularly regional election directors and other election officers to "do the training and reaching out" to the public. "I still feel, however, that we have not done enough and we are running out of time," he said. Rafanan made the statements after lawmakers raised concerns over how many Filipinos still do not understand how they will vote in May. Rep. Danilo Suarez of Quezon’s 3rd district, the Oversight committee chair, said the Comelec should emphasize to voters that they cannot commit mistakes in shading the circles next to the names of the candidates they will vote for, as mistakes cannot be corrected because a permanent marker will be used. Voting more than the maximum number of slots for a certain position—for example, there should be a maximum of only 12 choices for senator—will also void all the votes for that particular category. [See: How to Vote in an Automated Election System] "The chances of something going wrong [in the May 10 elections] are myriad. There are still problems regarding the delivery of PCOS (Precint Count Optical Scan) machines to polling precincts, the hiring of technicians, and voters education," said Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo, a senatorial candidate, in a statement.
Comelec spokesman James Jimenez, who also heads the poll body's education and information department, had earlier said it is waiting for the start of the official campaign period before going all-out in its media education campaigns. Jimenez said Comelec’s education campaign is currently being drowned out by political ads, which will be regulated when the official campaign period begins on February 9. "It's not just a matter of pouring money into this project; it’s a matter of spending money wisely. So we put our ads where they will be most felt. Where they will have the most impact, and that's during the campaign period when everyone else who has the money to spend on campaign ads suddenly find themselves limited in their ability to procure ad time," said Jimenez. In the meantime, Jimenez said, the Comelec is educating "stakeholders" and the academe. He said they also have election partners who provide assistance and organize fora on voter education.—Johanna Camille Sisante, with reports from Kimberly Tan/JV, GMANews.TV