Comelec assurance: No power outage on Election Day

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Wednesday assured voters that no power outage would happen during the May 2019 midterm polls.

The commission has established enough connections with power providers, according to Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez.

But he said: “A lot of our power supply comes from hydro. So there will be areas where the power supply will be short. However, the Comelec has a very strong working relationship with power providers and electric cooperatives nationwide. While we cannot do anything about the weather, what we can control is the response to any source of lack in power.”

He said that these electric companies had already made an assurance that they would prioritize the need for power on May 13, election day.

Jimenez also noted that the batteries of the vote counting machines (VCMs) would last beyond the voting period.

“Their batteries are good for 16 hours. If you remember our voting time is 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. And that’s 12 hours. So again, we expect that there will be enough battery power on the entire day,” Jimenez said. “Nevertheless, we will be providing extra batteries for our VCMs so that in a battery gets drained for some reason or another, we’re able to respond to it quickly.”

In February, the state weather bureau said its alert system was placed in the “El Niño Advisory” category, which is one step closer to declaring a full-blown El Niño phenomenon.

READ: El Niño on its way, says Pagasa

El Niño is a natural phenomenon of the climate system resulting from the interaction between the ocean and atmosphere in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific.

It lasts from eight 8 to 12 months and occurs two to seven years ever. /atm