PPI to hold workshop on election coverage

CEBU, Philippines - The Philippine Press Institute, in coordination with the officials of the Commission on Elections, will hold starting today a three-day seminar workshop for selected journalists from different parts of the country to prepare them for the task of covering the next year’s elections.

PPI seminar director Yvonne Chua said the training for the selected senior journalists is to be held at the Pearlmont Inn in Cagayan de Oro City. The FREEMAN will be sending a representative to the seminar.

Chua said because the automated elections system is to be implemented by the Comelec in next year’s national and local elections, it would be timely to discuss it with the 33 journalists from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao to equip them with the right tools in preparation for their coverage of next year’s elections.

“There is a need to know, demonstrate and explore the historical significance of automated elections since this will be the first time that this system will be implemented by the poll body nationwide,” said Jose L. Pavia, PPI executive director.

This system was already tested during the elections of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in 2008.

Miguel Eugenio Avila, presentations and demonstrations coordinator of Smartmatic-TIM, the supplier of the 82,000 Precinct Count Optical Scan machines, will brief the participants about the salient points of the automated elections system.

Avila will also make an actual demonstration of how the precinct count optical scan works.

Among the expected concerns to be raised during the seminar are the preparedness of the Comelec for public briefings and voter’s education, the safeguards against fake ballots, and accuracy of the count.

To have their feel of the automated elections, the participants will be asked to take part in a mock election exercise where they will fill up mock ballots and personally feed the sheets into the Precinct Count Optical Scanner.

The other lecturers during the seminar include veteran journalist Ellen Tordesillas, Comelec spokesman James Arthur Jimenez who will discuss Covering the Elections and Red Batario of the Center for Community Journalism and Development who will talk on Safety of Journalists. 

The Right to Reply issues will be handled by PPI chairman and Philippine Daily Inquirer publisher Isagani Yambot while Carol Arguillas of the MindaNews will share her knowledge on how the mock election was performed in Mindanao. — Rene U. Borromeo/BRP (THE FREEMAN)