Cordillera poll woes: Bad roads, no signal

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines—Inaccessible mountain roads and bad telecommunication and Internet signals are major security concerns for the May 9 elections in the Cordillera, according to a March 17 joint conference of the Commission on Elections, the Cordillera police and the Army.

The Kalinga police informed Comelec officials that 57 villages in the province are inaccessible due to bad road conditions while 52 voting centers in these communities do not have communications signals.

The Ifugao police said bad communication also affects communities in the province but they did not give details.

Survey done

Comelec has coordinated with electronic voting machine provider, Smartmatic-Total Information Management Corp., for a survey to pinpoint voting centers which are hampered by bad communication signals, said lawyer Ederlino Tabilas, Comelec-Cordillera regional director.

Lawyer Ricardo Bolintao, Kalinga election supervisor, said Smartmatic conducted an earlier survey but its results were unsatisfactory.

Kalinga has 195 voting centers serving 121,375 registered voters while Ifugao has 204 voting centers for 112,328 voters, according to a fact sheet provided by the Comelec. The Cordillera region has 906,162 registered voters.