5 Davao Oriental towns fail to transmit poll results due to defective flash cards
MATI CITY, Philippines – Out of the 11 towns in the province of Davao Oriental, five failed to transmit election results for canvassing.
The session hall of Sangguniang Panlungsod is almost empty except for a few election workers, poll watchers and journalists.
The delay was caused by defective compact flash cards and weak signal in several areas, said Commission on Election Davao Oriental election assistant Neresa Liguez.
Precinct Count Optical Scan machines in Mati City and Cateel town bogged down after the main CF cards malfunctioned.
“The cards started to fail even before the voting closed. Nothing was saved on the backup cards,” Liguez said.
She added that replacement cards from Manila already arrived in Davao City at around 2 p.m. Tuesday.
“The cards will be immediately transported to Mati and Cateel,” Liguez said.
The cards are expected to arrive Tuesday evening.
“If the cards arrive on time, we will be able to finish the canvassing on Wednesday,” said Liguez.
Liguez said many areas also experienced trouble in transmitting data because of the poor signal in the province.
In Boston town, all data were transmitted using broadband global area network (BGAN) because of the absence of all mobile networks in the polling precincts.
“Fortunately, the polling precincts that used BGANs encountered no glitches,” Liguez said.
In other areas, the BEIs transferred the transmission in areas with more stable signal.
“Signal in this election is worse compared to the previous election because typhoon Pablo destroyed many communication towers,” Liguez said.
She added that mobile network companies were still in the process of rehabilitating the towers in the area.
“We decided to resume on Tuesday morning after many towns failed to transmit,” said Liguez.
The canvassing was again declared on recess before lunch and will resume on Tuesday evening.
