Metro Manila voting ‘generally peaceful’ but queuing issues reported

MANILA, Philippines — The situation in Metro Manila during the last hour of the voting period was “generally peaceful” with “some problem with queuing” among voters, a Commission on Elections (Comelec) official said.

“I would like to state that the security or the peace and order situation of the National Capital Region, based on the report sent to the me by the PNP (Philippine National Police) regional director, as of 6:12 p.m., he said that, in summation, situation of the NCRPO (National Capital Region Police Office) area of responsibility is generally peaceful,” Comelec NCR Director Atty. Temie Lambino told reporters in a press briefing.

“There’s no report of untoward incident to our office, well except for some problem on queuing or falling in line of our voters that I think those were the reports that we answered or we addressed as early as 7 o’clock, 8 o’clock until 5 o’clock in the afternoon,” he added.

Among the precincts that encountered a queuing problem was the Gregorio Perfecto High School in Tondo, Manila which had to accommodate voters registered to vote in Almario Elementary School, which was “under repair” by the city government, according to Lambino.

Over 8,000 voters are registered to vote at Gregorio Perfecto High School while Almario Elementary School has 24,942 voters.

“So imagine the number of registered voters going to Gregorio Perfecto High School that already has 8,024. There will be a kind of issue in the queuing…which we, of course, just resolved by adding security from the philippine national police and making some arrangements,” he added.

According to Comelec data, there are 7,322,361 voters registered in the NCR.

READ: By the numbers: More voters in 2022 than in previous polls

Voting on May 9 opened at 6 a.m. and closed at 7 p.m.

je