MANILA, Philippines?Public school teachers have it had enough, and they now want the option to refuse election duties where they are usually faced with physical and mental stress, harassment and violence from bitter candidates and their supporters, according to a national teachers' group.

With elections only six months away, the 25,000-strong Teachers Dignity Coalition (TDC) urged lawmakers on Saturday to amend the Omnibus Election Code so that it would not be mandatory for public school teachers to render poll duty.

A bill pushing for this was filed earlier in the Senate, but Congress only has a few weeks to tackle the budget and other priority bills before adjourning for the campaign.

Under the Omnibus Election Code, teachers are supposed to head the Board of Election Inspectors, Board of Election Tellers and the Barangay Board of Canvassers. These bodies are in charge of counting the votes and ensuring that the polls are free, orderly and honest.

TDC national chair Benjo Basas, speaking at the Kapihan sa Sulo forum, said the group wants to make the teachers' work in elections voluntary so that they would have the leverage to ask for more security and commensurate pay.

Basas said teachers need more pay because they tend to be on duty for long hours during elections, and actually begin working on related tasks even before their official shifts start.

Protection is also vital because they usually become the scapegoats for losing candidates and their supporters. Sometimes, the Comelec blames the teachers for kinks in the process, he added.

In 2007, a teacher and a poll watcher were killed when armed men set ablaze a public school being used as a voting center.

Basas believes that even if poll duty would be voluntary, teachers would sign up for it as long as they are guaranteed protection and proper pay.

?If we can haggle for higher compensation and they can assure us that teachers would be safe and would be protected, we think no teacher would refuse to serve in the elections. I myself would not refuse,? he said.

He also noted that teachers are the ones most trusted by the public to handle poll duty, and they actually consider this as part of their obligation. But he added that this trust should be accompanied by the appropriate level of compensation.

Basas said that the automation of portions of the electoral process may make poll duty less tedious, but this is not expected to remove all of the teachers' problems.

?We welcome automated elections, but we don't see it as the answer to our request,? he said.

This was because teachers would now be handling precincts that are expected to serve about 2,000 voters each, based on the new clustering scheme laid down by the Comelec for the automated elections. Under the manual election system, each precinct only had a maximum of 150 voters, Basas noted.

He also said the Comelec has yet to train teachers on how to handle the new equipment and orient them on the new processes.