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By Al Jacinto, Correspondent
SULU ISLAND: More than12,000
policemen and soldiers will be deployed in the Muslim autonomous
region to guard next month’s elections.
Police and military gave their
assurance the August 11 polls in the autonomous region would be
clean and peaceful. “We see peaceful elections ahead. We have
enough security forces to guard the polls,” Elections Commissioner
Nicodemo Ferrer told The Manila Times.
Ferrer, together with
Commissioners Rene Sarmiento and Lucenito Tagle, held a command
conference with police and military in Sulu province.
Before the conference, the trio,
accompanied by lawyer Vidzfar Julie, the deputy regional elections
chief, met with Gov. Sakur Tan of Sulu and inaugurated the Comelec
provincial office in Patikul town.
Tan also brought the Comelec
officials and their assistants to different beaches and a tour of
Mount Datu, which overlooks a spread of several towns in the island.
Julie said more than P5 million
was spent for the renovation of the elections office.
Sarmiento said the renovated
Comelec office is the most beautiful in the Philippines and praised
the support of the provincial government. “Our Comelec office is
like a little Malacañang,” he said, referring to the Presidential
Palace.
The old Comelec office, just
besides the Provincial Capitol was dark and small, but now boasts of
glass and marble designs and several huge rooms, new furniture and
air conditioning system.
Tagle, who is assigned to
supervise the elections in Sulu, one of six provinces that comprise
the Muslim autonomous region, said the Comelec is ready with its
computerized polls.
“We are ready with the
computerizations of the elections in the autonomous region.
Everything is now in place and we hope these elections will be
clean, honest and peaceful,” he said.
The other provinces under the
autonomous region are Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur
and Shariff Kabunsuan.
Two technologies will be
implemented in the automated elections in the autonomous
region—the Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) system and the
Optical Mark Reader (OMR) system.
Comelec educators and
representatives from technology suppliers, Smartmatic-SAHI and
Avante International, have conducted trainings on the electronic
voting machines and automated counting machines in the provinces.
The DRE system uses touch-screen
or touch-pad technology and is fully automated from voting to
counting and final transmission of results to the canvassing centers
at the provincial and regional levels. OMR technology, on the other
hand, requires voters to fill out a paper ballot that is scanned by
specially designed machines.
Smartmatic-SAHI will implement
the DRE system in Maguindanao while Avante International will
provide OMR technology for the other provinces.
--Al Jacinto
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