Comelec swamped with work, issues 2 weeks before polls

With just a little over two weeks before the May 10 polls, a Commission on Elections (Comelec) official on Thursday admitted that there are still so many election-related work and issues pending with the poll body. "Punong-puno talaga (Our workload is so full)," Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento told reporters in an interview Thursday. “We have so much on the legal plane." He said they still have to hear and decide cases, conduct voter education exercises, and deal with automation issues. "We’re concerned with judicial issues plus management of the elections." Sarmiento specifically cited their problems regarding the calls for parallel manual count, and early voting for the media and in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Aside from this, the poll body has yet to hear and decide which areas to declare under its control, and which political groups to declare the dominant and minority parties. The Comelec has also several disqualification and accreditation cases pending with its law department, commission division, and en banc levels. As for the automation project, the deployment of the ballots is set to begin on the 25th while the deployment of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) is ongoing. The poll body is also still set to conduct mock elections next week. Considering these, Sarmiento said they expect that their readiness for the May polls will be doubted. "It has to be expected, this is change. I respect their views," he said. Anomaly in vote-ed campaign In a related development, the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) said there is a lack of transparency in the Comelec’s voters education campaign. At a press conference, Namfrel officials—Jose Cusia (chairman), Guillermo Luz (council member), and Damaso Magbual (membership chairman)—urged the Comelec to reveal how much money was allocated for the information drive and who bagged the contract. “Was there a budget? To whom was it granted? Was there a bidding done? So I think they have to answer these questions," Magbual said, adding there could be an “anomaly" as far as budget and disbursements are concerned. Cusia also asked the poll body why the amount spent for voters’ education is not listed among the Comelec's expenses. Comelec spokesman James Jimenez, on the other hand, denied Namfrel’s claims. “All of Comelec’s disbursements are transparently done, with pre-auditing by the Commission on Audit," he said. According to the Comelec, the voters" education campaign is being handled by their Education and Information Department (EID). "Poorly conducted" The Namfrel officials also complained that three weeks before the May 10 polls, many of the citizens are still not well informed about the voting procedures. Luz claimed that he just came from Zamboanga and out of the 50 people he interviewed, less than five were aware of how to vote properly in May. “They knew there are going to be machines, but they haven’t seen the ballot, they don't know the procedures," he said. Magbual criticized the Comelec for failing to reach the low income classes or the classes C, D, and E — the groups that constitute almost 90 percent of the total electorate. He said based on the questionnaire’s they have circulated, Namfrel has “no reason to believe" that the poor are well informed about the elections. In this light, he called on the poll body to intensify their information campaign to avoid ballot spoilage and disenfranchisement of voters next month. – KBK, GMANews.TV