Metro polls festive, peaceful - NCRPO

MANILA, Philippines - National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) chief Director Roberto Rosales said yesterday the mood among voters in Metro Manila was festive and the process “generally peaceful.”

“The most number of complaints we received was that it took voters a longer time in casting their votes. But after they were informed by the PCOS machines that their vote was counted, the voters left the polling precincts in festive mood,” Rosales said in an interview.

He noted that at 5 p.m., they “have yet to receive any report of election-related violence.”

Rosales, accompanied by his staff made the rounds of various polling precincts in Metro Manila early yesterday to personally supervise security preparations in polling precincts.

He directed the joint police and military contingents maintaining security in different polling precincts to clear entrances leading to various schools of tents bearing the names and images of politicians.

He was joined later by Michael Dioneda, head of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) National Capital Region (NCR) office, and Admiral Feliciano Angue, head of the National Capital Region Command (NCRCom) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), in inspecting the Ramon Magsaysay High School in Espana, Manila, the biggest polling precinct in Metro Manila.

Most PCOS machines worked

At least 27 precinct count optical scan machines malfunctioned yesterday in Metro Manila, but officials said this constitutes less than one percent of the PCOS machines used in the metropolis for the first automated polls in the country’s history.

Dioneda said yesterday’s national and local elections had been a “success” despite what he described as “minor problems.”

“There are several PCOS machines which malfunctioned or encountered problems but Smartmatic workers managed to repair majority of them immediately,” Dioneda said.

In cases where a number of PCOS machines were not repaired, Dioneda said the voting went on as scheduled, with the ballots put in a ballot box.

He said another machine would be delivered later to conduct the count in presence of representatives of various political parties.

Reports reaching the Regional Election Monitoring Action Center at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City showed that 11 PCOS machines encountered problems in the jurisdiction of the Eastern Police District (EPD) and seven others in the Northern Police District (NPD).

The Manila Police District (MPD) and the Southern Police District (SPD) each reported four faulty machines, while only one machine was found defective in the jurisdiction of the Quezon City Police District (QCPD).

However, officials said the 27 faulty PCOS machines comprise only .36 percent of the 7,555 PCOS machines used in 743 polling centers yesterday.

Disorganized  process

In one of the clustered precincts at the Legarda Elementary School in Sampaloc, Manila, voting was temporarily stopped when the PCOS machines failed to accept the filled-in ballots because the compact flash card (CF card) was not compatible with the PCOS machine.

Smartmatic personnel had to be called to replace the CF card, but only after some two-and-half hours of waiting. There was also a slight commotion when the voters who had already their ballots filled up refused to surrender their ballots to the Board of Election Inspectors. They insisted on waiting for the CF card to be replaced. 

“I want to personally feed my ballot to the PCOS. I do not trust anybody to do it for me,” said one voter.

In another precinct, the voting was also temporarily stopped when the ballots were supposed to be for Caloocan City. Police had to escort the ballots on their way to the Comelec office for replacement.

The teachers manning the precinct could not explain the presence of the wrong ballots, but said they were aware that the ballots have been subjected to inspection when they arrived at the school.

Voters also complained of the long lines before they could cast their votes. The BEIs list the names of new arrivals of voters and instructed them to wait for their names to be called. The procedure lasted almost two hours.

These sentiments were echoed by voters in other parts of Metro Manila.

In southern Metro Manila, first-time voter Lovely Almarina, 18, said she had to wait hours but once she was given the ballot, the process was smooth.

“This automation is way better than the manual system of voting,” she said.

‘Congratulations!’

In Quezon City, Fidel Sabio was the first to cast his vote when the precincts opened at 7 a.m. yesterday at the Judge Juan Luna High School. He was greeted by an equally enthusiastic teacher, who shouted “Congratulations!” when his ballot was accepted by the PCOS machine. The expression was popularized by a noontime show.

Sabio said he was so happy – he was jumping and clapping – that he almost left the polling precinct without leaving his thumbprint and having his finger stained with indelible ink.

“It’s really different now, unlike before when all you had to do was to write down the names of your candidates… I was nervous that my ballot would not be read,” he told The STAR.

Some voters, however, did not find their names on the voters’ list despite having voted in immediate past elections.

Other voters complained that the letters on the ballots were too small and hard to read. – With Nestor Etolle, Sandy Araneta, Rhodina Villanueva, Reinir Padua