Poll workers may get honoraria on May 23

CEBU, Philippines —  The Commission on Elections (Comelec) in Cebu City has set on May 23 the releasing of honoraria of teachers and other workers who served in the last elections.

Comelec South District election officer Marilou Paredes said they have already started preparing the payroll.

“We are still preparing for the payroll…tentative schedule for the honoraria is May 23 puhon,” said Paredes.

For the South District alone, the Comelec has allotted around P25 million in total amount of honorarium/allowances for poll workers.

Paredes could not give the exact number of poll workers serving in Cebu City during the May 9 elections, but she said these include not only those working in the regular polling precincts but also those in isolation polling places as well as medical personnel.

She said they are still busy preparing for the delivery of other important documents to the Comelec office in Manila.

“We are now so busy preparing for the delivery of the important documents to Manila like the SD cards, copy for the election returns, copy for the Comelec, and the minutes and other documents,” said Paredes.

She admitted having encountered problems like the failure of some teachers to submit the required documents on time.

“Some teachers failed to forward to us some of the required documents, they place it inside the ballot boxes and kailangan pa namo’g authority sa Manila to open the said ballot boxes,” said Paredes.

Paredes, however, said they understand that such mistakes are inevitable because the teachers were overworked during the elections.

“Basin tungod sa ilang kakapoy and nagdali dali na sila naapil og sulod sa ballot box nga kinahanglan namong iuli na sa reverse logistics namo…With the presence of watchers of course, kinahanglan mi ana and authority to open basin moingon na pud sila naa mi’y gisulod or naa mi’y gikuha inside the ballot boxes,” said Paredes.

There were also over 15,000 ballots rejected by the counting machine. Paredes, however, said that these would no longer affect the results of the elections.

“They explained that those rejected sa makina, naa silay counter na moihap siya ana pila ka times isud, iluwa…times rejected plus naa puy uban na smudges sa balot mostly, ang mga seniors. But dili ra ni maka affect sa turnout, dako naman kaayo ang labaw…dili na mu-matter, that’s my opinion,” said Paredes. — Decemay Padilla, FPL (FREEMAN)