PNP wants P900 million for polls

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine National Police (PNP) wants P900 million for the general elections in May.

“We need more or less P900 million for our election-related duties, we need to mobilize our personnel,” PNP Deputy Director General Jefferson Soriano said in a radio interview.

Soriano is also the director of the National Task Force HOPE (honest, orderly and peaceful elections).

Based on procedures, the PNP submits its budget request to the Department of Budget and Management, which then forwards it to the Commission on Elections. The poll body ultimately decides on the request.

Soriano said he is coordinating with the Comelec to make sure the PNP’s election duties are properly carried out. 

PNP chief Director General Jesus Verzosa has directed police commanders to map out plans to stave off poll-related violence particularly in 564 cities and towns considered “areas of concern.”

Soriano said the amount was determined based on requests from regional commands. 

In the May 2007 polls, PNP’s poll budget was only P644 million.

Of the 564 “areas of concern,” 302 are classified under category 1 or those with intense political rivalry while the remaining 262 areas are in category 2, or those where armed groups like the New People’s Army or the Moro Islamic Liberation Front are active and are capable of disrupting the polls.

Meanwhile, PNP spokesman Chief Superintendent Leonardo Espina said 25 persons have been arrested over the weekend including two policemen and a military officer as part of the ongoing gun ban. The arrests have brought to 704 the number of persons arrested since the start of the Comelec imposed gun ban on Jan.10.

Of the confiscated guns, police said 255 were high-powered firearms and 318 were of lower caliber.

Also seized were 128 bladed weapons and 16 grenades and explosive devices.

Ballot printing starts

As the PNP hatches security plans for the May elections, Comelec and Smartmatic-Total Information Management Corp. (TIM) started printing yesterday the ballots to be used in the coming polls.

Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said the printing process began shortly before 3:30 p.m. at the government-run National Printing Office (NPO) in Quezon City. The procedure is expected to be completed in 60 to 70 days.

The Comelec has invited political parties to send their representatives to witness the printing procedures and closed-circuit television cameras were installed at the printing area.

The NPO has renovated its printing area to provide viewing windows for observers.

The printing was originally scheduled on Jan. 31 until April 13 but authorities decided to delay it for days so that printed ballots wouldn’t have to stay long at the NPO warehouse and pose security problems.

“That means that there would be several days that the ballots would be sitting there (NPO warehouse), really not moving,” Jimenez said earlier, referring to implications of printing the ballots on Jan.31.

“The original shipment date of the ballots to the various municipalities is scheduled to start April 25. That’s not something that we are comfortable with from the point of view of security,” he said.

Smartmatic-TIM’s four high-end printing machines can each print 200,000 ballots a day, election officials said.

A total of 50,723,734 ballots would be printed. A ballot measures 25 inches by 8 1/2 inches.

Jimenez said each ballot “will go through a validation process where the whole ballot is actually checked for several parameters including validity of the security marks and accuracy of the names printed there.”

“There is quality control on all of the ballots and the quality control will be 100 percent. It means it will not be a random exercise. Every single ballot will be checked for quality,” he maintained.

Meanwhile, Cabinet Secretary and senatorial candidate Silvestre Bello III said the Comelec should reveal the real score in the poll automation program.

“We don’t want the legitimacy of the next leaders to be questioned in the courts or in the streets,” Bello said in a statement.

“Cheating has no room in the elections. They cannot operate on the small window of time that the automated elections have,” he said.

“In automated elections, the winners are known in just a few hours instead of waiting for a few days for the results to be announced,” he said.

Task force vs illegal posters

With the proliferation of unauthorized campaign materials, the Comelec has also ordered election officers in all cities and municipalities to create task forces that would remove campaign materials posted outside designated poster areas.

In Resolution 8758, the Comelec said EOs should chair the task force with the police station commanders as vice chairmen. A task force member may come from any of the deputized agencies of the Comelec.

“The task force shall tear down and remove campaign propaganda materials posted in public places outside the common poster areas,” the resolution read. It’s the Eos’ task to designate common poster areas.

The task force should also “watch out” for persons posting or distributing “unlawful election paraphernalia,” according to the resolution. It’s not clear if the task force is empowered to make arrests.

The campaign period for candidates gunning for national positions starts tomorrow.

The campaign period ends on May 8 or two days before the polls.

Under the resolution, one common poster area may be designated in a barangay of 5,000 registered voters. “For every increment of 5,000 registered voters thereafter, one additional common poster area (may be put up).”

Teachers’ appeal

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers, meanwhile, has reiterated its call for the Comelec to address its concerns over possible massive disenfranchisement of teachers in the elections.

Benjamin Valbuena, ACT national vice-chairman, said that they have received information that some local Comelec offices have already declared teachers who have not voted in their registered precincts in the past two elections as deactivated voters.

“This is preposterous, for these teachers have been voting in the precincts where they were assigned as Board of Election Inspectors (BEI),” Valbuena said.

“This problem was already resolved during former Comelec chair Benjamin Abalos’ time which issued Resolution No. 7833 in the May 2007 elections. The resolution allowed the teachers to transfer their voter’s registration from where they reside, to the place where they work,” Valbuena said.

“Thus in the past elections they are allowed to cast their votes in the precincts where they serve as BEIs, for it would be difficult for them to take time out of their poll duties to travel and vote at the precincts where they are registered as voters,” Valbuena said.

Valbuena cited cases in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan, where the local Comelec has declared more than half of the BEIs as unregistered voters.

“What is alarming is that the teacher will not be allowed to exercise their right to suffrage, and this is unacceptable,” he said.

“Our teachers are forced to serve in the elections without adequate compensation and protection. They have risked their lives to render their patriotic duty to ensure and protect this democratic exercise of the people’s right to vote,” he pointed out.

“We urge the Comelec to recognize the great contributions of the teachers in the past elections, and not just scramble to make the glitch-riddled automated election work this coming May 2010,” he said. with Rainier Allan Ronda, Pete Laude and Sheila Crisostomo