THE Commission on Elections has yet to deliver precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines to about 80 percent of polling places in the province of Bukidnon with barely two days to go before Monday’s polls.
The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) has monitored the delivery of only 115 PCOS machines for 110 clustered precincts in Malaybalay City in Bukidnon.
The PCOS machines, though, were not distributed to the polling places because representatives from the Board of Inspectors (BEIs) were absent and there were no memory cards available for the machines.
Comelec earlier suspended the deployment, final testing and sealing of PCOS machines in all polling centers until such time as their configuration has been corrected. After some voting machines malfunctioned, the Comelec decided to retrieve all the Compact Flash (CF) cards from all PCOS machines.
In Davao del Sur, Digos City election officer Aimee P. Ferilono-Ampoloquio reported that all PCOS machines have been delivered to all voting precincts in the city.
Digos has 115 clustered precincts, covering 26 barangays with 93,801 voters.
Testing and sealing of the PCOS machines have been suspended until May 9, the expected arrival of the reconfigured CF cards.
Ampoloquio likened all the Comelec staff to “doctors on call,” ready for the advice of the Comelec head office in Manila on the arrival of the reconfigured CF cards.
“If the cards will arrive on May 10, election day, then we will just have to test the PCOS (machines) with the reconfigured CF cards (on the same day) and proceed immediately with voting,” she said. – Ronald Ramao, Diocese of Malaybalay, Bukidnon, and Belindo Aguilar, Cor Jesu College