All systems go for barangay polls

Except for Bohol, it’s all systems go for Monday’s barangay elections in Central Visayas, a top-ranking official of the poll body said yesterday

“Except for the postponement of the elections in Bohol, we have not encountered major or minor problems with regard to the barangay elections,” Temie Lambino, regional director of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said.

Some polling centers in Mandaue City will be moved elsewhere as the schoolbuildings that host them were damaged by the Oct. 15 earthquake.

“There are some buildings which were destroyed by the earthquake. The solution is to transfer to another polling place. For example, if the elementary school was destroyed, the elections can continue at the high school building,” Lambino said.

“Other public buildings can be used as long as they are fit for the elections. But in case there are no available buildings that can be used for the elections, we can have makeshift polling centers,” he added.

But so far, Lambino said, the transfer of polling centers is not a major concern.

Lambino said winners of the elections are expected to be announced a few hours after the voting period closes.

Meanwhile, Tagbilaran Bishop Leonardo Medroso welcomed the decision of the Commission on Elections to postpone the barangay elections in Bohol.

“The great calamity that devastated Bohol… so reduced the people to survival that to engage in politics like an election is improper to say the least,” Medroso told reporters on Friday.

Mall voting

Selected senior citizens and persons with disabilities (PWDs) will be allowed to vote inside SM City Cebu as part of a pilot test by the Comelec.

About 68 voters from barangay Mabolo in Cebu City were chosen randomly to vote inside the mall.

The pilot test was meant to identify the challenges before the program will be expanded for the national elections in 2016.

Aside from Cebu City, the other pilot sites in the country are Manila, Lipa City in Batangas for Luzon and General Santos City in Mindanao.