Elections went smoothly, poll officials in three Metro Manila cities say

Poll officials from several precincts in at least three cities in Metro Manila on Monday said the first-ever automated elections went smoothly. Despite several setbacks — involving an automated poll machine that rejected half of ballots fed into it — the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) at the Neptali Gonzales High School in Mandaluyong City considered the elections in their area "successful." "Kahit nung testing at sealing the other day, maayos at mabilis naman sa amin," Gina Cuison, BEI chairman in the area, a 15 precinct cluster, told GMANews.TV. (Even during testing and sealing, which was held the other day, ours was quick and orderly.) Besides a malfunctioning PCOS machine, a separate set of 400 ballots was fed into another machine of which only 206 was read, she added. "Ang sabi sa amin ng technician, kolektahin na lang ang ballot at ife-feed na lang sa PCOS machine sa kabilang room kapag natapos," Cuison said. (The technician told us to collect the ballots and that these will be fed into a different machine in the next room once its done.) Considering that various testings in some other schools last May 6 were plagued by glitches, teachers at the Neptali Gonzales High School said they already "felt lucky" that they were spared from such problems. Cuison said there were no reported incidents of vote-buying or electioneering inside the school premises. At the University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P) in Don Atonio, Pasig City, at least five ballots had been rejected as of posting due to "ambiguous" markings made by the voters. Presidential candidate Nicanor Perlas was among the earliest individuals to cast his vote at the precinct inside the UA&P. Gino Cordova, coordinator of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting in San Antonio Village, said two of the most common concerns that were brought to their attention were cases of missing names and complaints from the elderly who requested that special lines be made for them. Four PCOS machines were used at the UA&P voting center to accommodate almost 3,000 voters in the village. Bureau of Election Inspectors expressed confidence of being able to accomodate every voter before the 7 p.m. extended cut-off period for voting. At the Jose Magsaysay Elementary School in Makati City, a flying voter was reportedly able to vote. School principal Imelda Ferrer, who currently serves as an election supervisor at the school, said the incident has already been reported to the authorities and an investigation into the matter would be on the way. While the schools in Pasig and Mandaluyong received reports of glitches, Ferrer said the biggest problem their school encountered was the formation of a "human traffic" and "bottle necks" outside the school. To keep orderliness inside the precincts, school officials only allowed 30 people at a time to enter the premises, triggering the formation of long lines outside the school. By 4 p.m., voters waiting in line had grown uneasy, demanding the school security guard to let them in. Ferrer blamed this behavior to the voters' lack of discipline. "Tumulong na nga ang pulis sa amin. Pero ang tao nagpupumilit. Basta papasok dito at maghahanap ng presinto nila," she said. (The police were already helping us. But the people were persistent. They came right in, looking for their precincts.) She said at some point other voters began throwing tantrums against the BEIs due to the long lines that had already spilled over to the street. "But we just told them, 'Bear with us. This is also our first time,'" Ferrer said. Other than voters' unruly behavior, Ferrer said the elections in their school went smoothly, with no PCOS machines encountering any problem. - RJAB Jr., GMANews.TV