Comelec-6: 2010 polls successful
In a scale of 1 to 10 points, with 10 being the highest, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) Region VI rated the conduct of elections at 8.5 points.
“I rated it at 8.5 in terms of success based on my expectations on the conduct of elections,” said Comelec regional election director Atty. Rey Rene Buac.
He acknowledged, though, that a lot of people might disagree to his assessment “because their expectations are different from mine.
“But my rating is based in comparison to that of the previous elections. In the 2007 election, the first precinct to submit election returns was 12:00 midnight but in less than 30 minutes since the voting center close, the canvassing centers already received a lot of results,” Buac cited.
Before, canvassing of votes in the city or provincial level took 2-3 weeks but it was not trimmed to a day or two, he added.
The long canvassing of votes, the Comelec regional chief said, is a very big disadvantage.
“Some people might react different because they are thinking that they are perfect and they also require perfection from other people, including the system. In a municipality of 80 clustered precincts, pag may isang nag bogged down na PCOS machine, sa akin that’s nothing because that’s a problem that can be solved,” Buac said.
In Western Visayas, Comelec pegged the number of PCOS (precinct count optical scan) machines to be very negligible.
Buac claimed though that he has no actual number of reserved PCOS machines used to reinforce machines that encountered problems.
PCOS machines that experienced problems but have been remedied were not counted in the number of machines, which bogged down.
As of presstime, “the number of PCOS machines that bogged are nine–6 from Antique and one each from Iloilo, Capiz, and in Escalante City, Negros Occidental,” Buac said.
And for those who still criticized COMELEC, “I asked myself, hindi ba natuloy ang eleskyon?”
No complaint
Days after the polls, Buac said that they have not received a single official report of any complaint of electoral fraud.
“There are a lot but I don’t deal with them. ‘Pag sa media lang nag-re-report, that’s tsismis for me,” he added.
If there’s really a complaint, Buac said that complainants they should execute an affidavit and file it with the prosecutors’ office or with the Comelec so that they could act on it.
As to the unofficial complaints, he claimed that that they have receiving usual complaints of vote buying and intimidation.
