10 of 3,000 teachers fail poll machine training in MManila

Ten out of 3,000 teachers who will serve as Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) in the upcoming May 10 elections did not pass a government exam that would certify them as IT-capable, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said on Monday. "Ten teachers out of 3,000 ang bagsak (failed)," Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal told reporters in an interview. He, however, said that the figure is not alarming. "Ask any statistician, 10 out of 3,000, is that a big percentage? No," Larrazabal said. Larrazabal said age could have played a factor why some teachers did not pass the exam. The exam was given by the Department of Science of Technology (DOST) in Metro Manila early this month. Department of Education (DepEd) Undersecretary Franklin Sunga said those who passed had no difficulties in handling the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) units, the technology that will be used in the first ever nationwide automated elections. "We don't see any problem with the use of the PCOS machine. Ang sabi nila ay napakadali namang gamitin, parang ATM lang (They said it was so easy to use, just like an ATM machine)," he told GMANews.TV in an interview. The Comelec will need 240,000 BEIs in the May 10 polls — three in every clustered precinct with at least one of them IT-capable. There will be 76,340 clustered precincts on election day. But the Comelec made at least two of the three BEIs — or 152,609 teachers — undergo two-day trainings done separately for the whole month of March. The training consists of a lecture and an exam to test whether they understand the voting system and the operations of the machines that will be used in the elections. The Comelec is in charge of training the BEIs while the DOST is in charge of certifying them as IT-capable. Disenfranchisement? Meanwhile, Larrazabal said they are looking into the complaints of the Teachers’ Dignity Coalition (TDC) regarding widespread disenfranchisement of teachers due to past poll duties. The TDC said many teachers had been deactivated from the voters’ list after they failed to vote in the past elections due to their election duties. "We listen and try our best to accommodate their requests," Larrazabal said as he downplayed the threat of TDC to boycott their election duties in May. "We'd like to point out, we've been addressing their concerns... we haven't been turning a deaf ear on them," he said. BEIs will be receiving P4,300 plus leave credits as pay for their service during the polls. The BEIs are the government personnel in each polling precinct tasked with assisting voters and counting the votes at the precinct level. The BEIs are traditionally public school teachers. Teachers serving on the BEIs will have an array of new tasks associated with election duty, including distributing and explaining long, multiple-choice ballots to voters and operating the PCOS. — KBK/RSJ, GMANews.TV