Local absentee voting at Camp Crame starts

Police officers and personnel, who registered as absentee voters, cast their votes at Camp Crame on Monday (April 29, 2013)/ JAMIE ELONA

MANILA, Philippines— The Philippine National Police National (PNP) headquarters in Quezon City is now open for its officers and personnel, who registered as absentee voters, a PNP spokesman said Monday.

Chief Superintendent Generoso Cerbo said the conduct of manual absentee voting at Camp Crame’s Multi-Purpose Center started at 8 a.m. and would end at 5 p.m. He said there were about 50 PNP personnel in Camp Crame, who applied as early voters.

Cerbo said the absentee voters can cast their votes for senators and party-list representatives.

The same activity, he said, was being conducted in other PNP regional offices throughout the country.

“Importanteng gawain ito dahil hindi sa lahat ng pagkakataon ay binibigyan [kami] ng pagkakataong makaboto sa aming nasasakupan na community. Ito na ang pagkakataon na pwede kaming bumoto,” Superintendent Ronnie Forro of PNP-Crime Laboratory, a registered absentee voter, said.

Forro said he wasn’t able to vote during the last election because he was on duty at Camp Crame.

Rosalinda Albia Radion, Comelec’s election officer for Quezon City, said 3,009 PNP officers were approved for the early voting process but some applicants, she said, had been disapproved because they were either declared as “deactivated voters” or were not included in the national list of registered voters in the Philippines.

“You become a deactivated voter when you fail to vote in two consecutive regular elections,” Radion said.

After the voting, Radion said, all election results would be sent to Comelec’s office in Palacio del Gobernador, Intramuros, Manila for safekeeping, and would be counted on the day of elections, May 13.

Based on PNP’s record, the police regional office (PRO) with most number of approved absentee voters is PRO 7 with 488 early voters, followed by PRO 6 with 469, and PRO 8 with 388.