90% of teachers now PCOS-­certified

PCOS machine. INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO-

Almost 90 percent of the teachers designated to man the polling precincts as board of election inspectors on the May 9 elections have already been certified as qualified to handle the precinct count optical scan or PCOS machines.

Secretary Mario Montejo of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) said these were the same public school teachers who were deployed during the previous automated elections of 2010 and 2013.

He said the remaining 10 percent of the required teachers will be trained by the the Commission on Elections (Comelec) from March 1 to 26.

Two memoranda of agreement were signed yesterday by the Comelec, the DOST and the Department of Education to cover the training.

Montejo said the agencies have already done this in the past elections.

The DOST will issue a certification after the training.

“We will certify that they are technically capable to operate the machines,” Montejo said.

Education Undersecretary Alberto Muyot said he does not have an exact figure of the teachers to be educated on the PCOS machines but he is looking at less than 100.

Comelec Chair Andres Bautista said these teachers would receive a P2,000 incentive on the training day.

He said they will be part of 300,000 public school teachers who will serve as front liners on Election Day.