MANILA, Philippines?What?s happening with the project to automate the May elections?

Education Secretary Jesli Lapus raised this question Monday after the scheduled training of the 400,000 teachers who will staff precincts in the first nationwide computerized balloting was again delayed.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) earlier said the training would be held in November, but postponed it to February. Lapus, however, said the latest advisory from Comelec law chief Ferdinand Rafanan rescheduled the exercise to March and April.

?Tsk. Tsk. They keep on changing their mind about their scheduled target for the training and now, it?s too near the elections,? Lapus said.

?What?s happening?? he asked. ?Our teachers don?t want to be blamed and become the scapegoats of any failure caused by the lack of preparations due to project timetable slippage.?

Comelec Chair Jose Melo Monday said that the consortium that won the P7.2-billion automation contract will fail to meet its commitment to deliver the first batch of 42,000 precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines by December.

Melo said the team deployed to inspect the ongoing manufacturing of the machines in Shanghai, China, reported that Smartmatic-Total Information Management Inc. (TIM) could ?probably? only deliver around 30,000 machines by the end of the month and the other 12,000 in January.

The consortium gave as reasons for the delay the heavy sea traffic and the high shipping cost during the holidays.

Melo, a former Supreme Court associate justice, said he was not so much interested in penalizing the consortium for failing to meet its commitment so long as it could deliver all 82,000 machines in time for the May 10 balloting.

Over the weekend, 100 PCOS machines were delivered for the Comelec?s voters? education campaign.

?Not very comfortable?

?I?m not very comfortable at this time unless I see the machines. I want to see them before me. I told our people to tell Smartmatic to manufacture as fast as possible,? Melo said.

In case Smartmatic-TIM fails to deliver all 82,000 machines, the poll body plans to hold early elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Melo said the ARMM elections could be held about a week or two ahead of the May 10 vote so that machines that would be deployed in ARMM could be used later in other parts of the country.

Hands-on training urged

Antonio Tinio, national chair of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, said the Comelec should at least give teachers an overview of what they were expected to do during the polling.

?But even that?s not happening around the country,? he said. ?Obviously, lectures will not do. This time we need to have hands-on experience because this is the first time that we are going to do this,? he said.

?They?re saying this is going to be easy but that is if everything goes well. What if there are mechanical problems that require troubleshooting? What then?? he added.

Tinio said that one complication was attaching the modem to the automated machine before going online to transmit the results.

?Even the tech-savvy find that a bit complicated. What more our teachers?? he said.

Lapus also announced that teachers serving during the May 10 elections would get at least P4,000, which is P1,000 more than what they received during the 2007 polls.

On the other hand, utility persons and other support staff will still be paid P1,500 for their services. With a report from Jerry E. Esplanada