Atty. Lionel Marco Castillano, Cebu acting regional director of Comelec in Central Visayas (Comelec-7) | CDN Digital file photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Commission on Elections in Central Visayas (Comelec-7) is already 85 percent prepared for the upcoming Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) Elections on October 30, 2023.
Lawyer Lionel Marco Castillano, acting regional director of Comelec-7, said that teachers and volunteers who would serve in the elections were currently undergoing training.
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Comelec training
According to their data, around 46,821 electoral boards have already undergone training.
He said that some electoral boards were non-teaching personnel or those who were non-partisan registered voters who would serve the election, especially those coming from big cities and municipalities with lesser number of teachers.
“Una priority nato ang public school teachers sunod (ang) private school teachers, national employees sa national agencies, local government employees hangtud ang katapusan na ana kining mga non partisan registered voters o kung wa na gyu’y lain kanang mga anak sa atong teachers although dili sila pwede magkuyog sa usa ka presinto,” Castillano said.
(Our priority are the public school teachers, next the private school teachers, national employees of our national agencies, local government employees, until the last of that will be the non partisan registered voters or if there are no others then the children of our teachers, although they are not allowed to be together in one precinct.)
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No classroom shortage
Castillano also said that they were not experiencing a shortage of classrooms that would be utilized as voting precincts.
“Okay na man ta, wala na tay problema, Ang feedback nga ako nadawat sa mga Election officers okay naman,” he added.
(We are okay on that, we have no problem. The feedback I received from the election officers is that they are okay.)
The training for the electoral board will last until the second week of October.
Castillano also said that they had enough ballot boxes and that they were waiting for the official ballots, election returns, and indelible inks to be delivered.