At least seven barangays in Cebu will have to do a toss coin to determine who shall sit as their village officials.
Cebu provincial election supervisor Lionel Marco Castillano said the practice has to be done to break ties among candidates for barangay captains and council in the towns of Alcantara, Catmon, Tabogon, Malabuyoc, and San Fernando.
The poll body on Tuesday has yet to determine what particular barangays have to resort to coin flipping or tossing.
“Usually coin toss in cases of tie is done just once. But the parties can agree to do do it in a best-of-three, or a best-of-five,” said Castillano in an interview.
The chairman of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI), he said, shall do the coin toss.
“Under the general instruction, ties are resolved within five days by coin toss. But the candidates can agree to break the tie immediately,” Castillano said.
Of 1,203 barangays in Cebu, only 10 has yet to transmit the results as of Tuesday.
“The elections in Cebu is 99.17 percent complete. There are no failure of elections here and we would like to thank our policemen and teachers for the successful conduct of the barangay and SK (Sangguniang Kabataan) elections. They are election heroes,” Castillano said.
He said he’s elated that no violent incidents happened in Tuburan town where six villages were declared “election hotspots” due to intense political rivalry and previous election-related violence.
“Our security preparations were effective and the candidates cooperated. They themselves wanted a peaceful conduct of the elections,” he said.
Castillano, however, apologized to the voters who were not able to quickly find their precincts.
“We clustered the precincts from 600 voters to just 400 plus there were no voters assistance desk due to the absence of the C-Cimpel,” he said.
The Chuch-based Cebu-Citizens Involvement and Maturation for Peoples Empowerment and Liberation or C-Cimpel are not active during barangay and SK elections for lack of volunteers whose relatives are seeking posts in their respective villages.
“It could have been a great help if C-Cimpel is around. They really give us a huge lift during elections,” Castillano said.
He appealed to candidates—winners and losers—to remove campaign posters and streamers placed on walls and other areas not that the polls are over.
“Let us show unity in the community whether you win or lose,” he said.
Castillano also reminded all candidates in the barangay and SK elections to submit their individual Statements of Contributions and Expenditures (SOCE) 30 days after election day.
First-time offenders and those who fail to submit the SOCE on time are subject to an administrative fine of P1,000 to P30,000 depending on the position they ran for.
Second-time offenders and subsequent offenders are subject face perpetual disqualification from public office.
SOCE helps the Comelec determine whether a candidate has overspent during the campaign period.
“Now we already have a particular group that looks into all the SOCE. In fact, they audit every SOCE and its attachments to find out if a candidate spend within or beyond the limit provided for by law,” Castillano said.
Candidates, he said, are only allowed to spend P5 for each voter in the barangay that they are running in.