Comelec to voters: Be patient, don’t get discouraged

By: Ador Vincent S. Mayol - 9 years ago

A Filipino checks a list of voters and their corresponding precinct numbers at a polling center in suburban Quezon city, north of Manila, Philippines on the eve of election day Sunday, May 8, 2016. Thirty years after emerging from a brutal dictatorship, Filipinos will face a dilemma when they pick a new leader on Monday: Should they choose an outspoken mayor with an audacious promise to wipe out crimes and graft within months or back reformists who would not be as bold but say they wouldn’t put democracy at risk. AP File Photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines—“Be patient and don’t get discouraged.”

This was the appeal of Director Jose Nick Mendros of the Commission on Elections in Central Visayas (Comelec-7) to voters who were tempted to go home unable to wait in voting centers cramped with people in a hot, humid summer day.

He said long lines were expected during elections, and voters should not be discouraged.

“We are appealing to voters to exercise their right to vote. We are choosing a President this time, so go out and vote,” he said in a press conference at the election media center in the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas in Cebu City on Monday morning.

Mendros said that even in the United States, people had to stand in line to cast their votes.

“There will be lines definitely. Even in the airport, there are lines. How much more during elections,” he said.

“Voters really just have to be patient. Can you just wait for your turn? Bring small chairs if you want to. If you see long lines in voting centers, don’t be discouraged right away,” he said.

Mendros declined to give an estimate on the number of people who already voted.

Msgr. Joseph Tan, spokesperson of the Church-based Cebu Citizen’s Involvement and Maturation for People’s Empowerment and Liberation (C-Cimpel), echoed the appeal to voters not to be frustrated with long lines. “We are doing something very sacred and very important. It requires sacrifice on our part. For citizens, let’s exercise patience, sacrifice and if I may add charity to each other,” he said.

Tan also advised people going to polling precincts not to make provocative comments.

“These will not help us arrive at having peaceful elections,” he said.

Tan said C-Cimpel, an accredited citizen’s arm of the Comelec, will collate all the election returns in Cebu and send them to another Church-based poll watchdog, the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), in Manila.

“C-Cimpel will just collect the results from Cebu and send them to PPCRV. We won’t have parallel counting,” he said. RAM/rga