Comelec all set for Bohol, Zamboanga special polls

A Philippine Air Force helicopter hovers above the totally-collapsed Our Lady of Light church at Loon township, Bohol province in central Philippines Thursday Oct.17, 2013. AP FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines —The Commission on Elections is “100 percent ready” for the holding on Nov. 25 of special barangay (village) elections in earthquake-ravaged Bohol and battle-scarred and flood-ravaged Zamboanga City.

The October 28 barangay elections were postposed in Bohol because of the devastation wrought there by a magnitude-7.2 earthquake on October 15, while the elections in Zamboanga had to be reset because of the extensive damage caused by three weeks of fighting between government forces and renegade members of the Moro National Liberation Front in September. After the fighting, which razed at least 10,000 homes, the Zamboanga area suffered from extensive flooding.

Election Commissioners Grace Padaca and Al Parreño told the Inquirer that the Comelec is “all set” for the Nov. 25 elections in Bohol and Zamboanga City, with all the required election materials and equipment “already in place.”

Parreño said he would be “personally monitoring the barangay elections in either Bohol or Zamboanga” on the instructions of Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr.

Aside from making preparations for the holding of the special barangay elections in these two places, Padaca noted, the commission had also supervised the holding of special elections “in a few places where there was failure of elections, like in Buldon, Maguindanao” due to the threat of violence.

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