Polls held in ComVal village 4 days late

COMPOSTELA, Compostela Valley— Carrying his 3-year-old son in his arms, Joshua Micua did not mind queuing for almost three hours outside  Gabi Elementary School on Friday to cast his ballot.

Residents of the village cast their ballots only on Friday, four days after the rest of the nation trooped to polling precincts for Monday’s midterm elections, because the ballots intended for their village were erroneously sent to a precinct in Baguio City.

“I patiently waited for my turn,” said the 35-year-old Micua. He and his wife are in the same batch of voters.

“I skipped work just to vote,” said Gaudioso Libranza, a banana plantation worker and a relative of the village chief. Barangay (village) Gabi has at least 800 voters.

To maintain order as voters tried to squeeze into their designated polling centers inside  Gabi Elementary School, election officials had to hand out numbers.

Those who got higher numbers had to wait under tents with Unicef markings.

Unidentified men had been seen trying to coerce voters into picking certain candidates.

“Even before the special elections, we’ve already received reports of vote-buying. Some voters were even harassed by unidentified men,” said Ding Ilagan of the election watchdog Kontra Daya. Frinston L. Lim, Inquirer Mindanao