By CARLOS MARQUEZ
Nueva Ecija Gold
CABANATUAN CITY. – Apparently excited over experiencing the first automated election, Nueva Ecija’s 1.3 million voters lined up early Monday morning at their polling precincts, elbowed each other in looking for their names in the list, as some nearly swooned because of the oppressive heat–-only to be greeted by defective voting machines and a new vote-buying technique.
Certain local candidates’ tacticians devised a sample ballot, a facsimile of the actual in size and form, which the voter will place on top of his assigned ballot and shade the hole cut opposite the candidate’s name. The attempt to distribute these sample ballots was, however, thwarted when a watcher of the rival candidate reported it to a local radio program. No arrest was reported.
The Philippine National Police described the conduct of voting as “generally peaceful,” if not for petty untoward incidents like the shooting of a supporter of a Gapan City mayoral candidate, the noise barrage in San Antonio town hall and reports of “gapangan” (last minute vote-buying) in various places on election eve.
Supt. Ricardo Marquez, Nueva Ecija police director, did not name the suspect and the victim, a supporter of Gapan mayoral candidate Baby Natividad who dared a follower of rival candidate Christian Tinio into a draw was hit in the stomach. The wound was not fatal, though.
In Talavera town, a police checkpoint intercepted two tricycle-riding men carrying guns, and in Lupao town a bodyguard of mayoral candidate De Guzman was gunned down earlier last week.
Bongabon Mayor Beth Gamilla reported that Barangay Curva councilman Renato Francisco was strangled by a supporter of Gov. Aurelio Umali while voting, his sample ballot crumpled and was forced out of the precinct.
Also in Bongabon, police arrested two men carrying guns.
Marquez said he would be attending to these reports later as his priority until election day were the defective PCOS machines in at least 12 towns in the province.
The Commission on Elections advised the Board of Election Inspectors in these areas to go on with manual voting and the ballots would be kept until spare machines from other towns arrive. They did not say if they would resort to manual counting in areas where PCOS machines did not work.
Ironically, an election employee failed to cast her vote early in Barangay Bangad in Cabanatuan because the PCOS in her assigned precinct would not work.
A Smartmatic technician in a Peñaranda precinct said it was mostly a case of paper jam with the PCOS machines in those reported troubled areas.
Marquez said he understood that Smartmatic has an information technology technician assigned in each PCOS and the problem could be solved in due time.