Comelec-7: 2013 polls successful

CEBU, Philippines - Though there was a delay in the proclamation of some winning candidates in the Province of Cebu, Commission on Election-7 Regional Director Temie Lambino said the election was successful.

The only setback was that some municipalities and cities failed to transmit their results immediately due to defective Compact Flash cards and they had to wait for replacements from Manila.

However, he said out of 5,700 plus CF cards in the entire region only a few of the cards malfunctioned.

He added there was no official statement from the National Support Center or the Comelec en banc as to the reason behind the malfunctioning CF cards. But he presumed that this was because of the shared numbers of the CF cards.

“Considering we have around 80,000 clustered precincts nationwide and we configured just in a very short period of time, maybe that’s the reason of the malfunction of some CF cards. Also because of the time constraint for our programmers to program all the CF cards,” he explained.

Aside from that, Lambino also highlighted the security plan they did together with the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines. He said peace and order in Central Visayas before and after election was successful.

Voter turnout

The voters turn out in the Province of Cebu in this year’s election was much higher compared to the 2010 national elections,  Lambino said. Cebu posted an 82.5 percent turnout compared to 2010 election which only posted almost 77 percent.

For the entire region, Lambino said in 2010 there was a turnout of less than 80 percent compared to this years 80 to 85 percent.

“It is totally higher than the result of last election,” he said.

Lambino added this was because of the intense cleansing of voters lists by the Comelec. He said they removed some multiple registrants, those who transferred and those who died.

Lambino also welcomed the filing of election protest by candidates who lost the election. He said it is just part of the democratic process in the country.

Reportedly, some of the candidates questioned the accuracy of the Precinct Count Optical Scan machines. However, Lambino said he has no doubts with the PCOS machines.

For the election protest, those who ran for positions from mayor down to the councilors will fall under the jurisdiction of the Regional Trial Court. For the city and the province it falls under the jurisdiction of the Comelec Manila. For congressmen, it should be with the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal.

When asked for his message to the losing candidates, Lambino said “live to fight another day.”  (FREEMAN)