Remote island’s ballots no longer at mercy of tides, thanks to technology

MANILA, Philippines - For 10 hours, public school teacher Edgardo Baruc held on to his ballot boxes waiting for the tide and the light of day. The Bantay Dagat boat carrying him and other election inspectors, police officers and vigilant locals struck a shallow reef off Doong, a coralline island seven nautical miles and an hour’s boat ride away from the larger Bantayan Island, in the northwestern part of mainland Cebu. It was already close to midnight when the boat left Doong carrying transmittal forms and election returns.

A few years back, Baruc suffered the same hardship. Strong violent waves battered his boat carrying election paraphernalia to the island. Between Doong and Mambacayaw islands, in the middle of an angry sea, the boat eventually capsized. Luckily, Baruc managed to keep the ballot boxes afloat by struggling to open them with the keys, while trying to keep his head above water.

“I had to open the ballot box and salvage the ballot forms for fear that the ballot box might sink,” he says in the dialect.

A Coast Guard team responded by pulling him and the others out of the water and bringing them safely to shore, this after the local police managed to call for rescue via a two-way handheld radio. Elections were held later in the day after the ballots were aired out to dry in the sun.

Thanks to digital wireless technology now, public school teachers like Baruc, who will serve in Monday’s elections in the most remote islands, may suffer no more the burden of battling the most merciless weather and the mercy of tide. They may even cut their working time in half.

Smart Communications Inc. recently partnered with Doong Elementary School where Baruc teaches in installing an extender at two voting precinct clusters (with a total voting population of 1,384). The extender will boost and amplify the GSM signal to areas where the signal is needed. Data from the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machine can then be transmitted in the shortest and fastest way via the Internet.

“It would be faster and convenient,” says Baruc who has been selflessly serving local and national elections since 1992.

For Josephine Sanz, another public school teacher at Doong Elementary School, Smart’s installation of an extender will give reliable and foolproof Internet connection. Getting a good signal means getting a good night’s sleep after toiling in the precincts for more than 10 hours.

“We can sleep early,” she says in the vernacular.

Sanz recounts the sleepless and the stressful experience she had in the 2010 elections. At closing time and after serving for more than 10 hours inside the precinct, she and her colleagues were about to transmit the election returns when they lost the signal. They were left with no choice but to deliver physically the compact flash cards to Bantayan Island. And not without missing a beat — or a boat.

The challenge was to deliver the returns on time.

“It was dark but we had to wade in the water, careful not to wet the election returns and the compact flash cards. Once in the boat, we had to wait for a few hours more for the tide to come in,” she says. “We were really pressured and pressed for time.”

Eliminating travel risks and saving time notwithstanding, Internet transmission of election results would also mean shortening the lengthy election process, shielding the system from possible devious schemes.

“The shorter the process, the more reassuring for us that we get results from a clean and honest election,” says Fr. Isaias Gerali Jr., Doong’s parish priest who advocates value formation but cautions parishioners to be more vigilant than ever. “We should be watchful always as cheating might happen elsewhere.”

Smart’s partnership with Doong Elementary School started in September 1996 when the telco established online presence for and provided Internet access to students of the school, in addition to a content-driven component and training programs for its teachers.

This year, Smart has supported the election initiatives of various organizations. In Cebu, it provided communication and connectivity support to SunStar Cebu and to the Cebu Citizens Involvement and Maturation in People’s Empowerment and Liberation.

Smart also donated P150,000 worth of prepaid load cards and 40 smartphones to the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting. It has been powering Rappler’s #VoteSmart campaign, as well as the election forums of BlogWatch.ph.

Smart and PLDT are the telecommunications providers for the election coverage of TV5 (Pagbabago 2013), GMA7, and ABS-CBN.