Lawyer Emmanuel Ignacio, director of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for Central Luzon, made these projections for the May 9 elections, as he expressed confidence that vote counting machines (VCM’s) would lead to faster tabulation of votes.
This, even as Supt. Nick Torre, chief of the regional operations and plans division of the Central Luzon police, said thousands of policemen who have already been deployed all over his region to secure VCM’s since last Wednesday, have already received their P1,000 allowance each for the entire duration of their election-related duties.
“That’s about P100 per day for a period of about nine days that includes two days after election day,” Torre said in a forum with the Pampanga Press Club ((PPC) here.
Torre said that policemen’s election duties could even extend beyond the second day of May 9 if security concerns would warrant their presence.
Ignacio reported 20 “areas of concern” in Central Luzon, but downplayed threats of violence as the major parameter for the list was based merely on the history of electoral conflicts in the areas. He did not identify the areas.
“We expect the winners in the municipal or city level elections to be known by 9 p.m. on May 9. The count in the precincts will be faster because the VCM’s in the precincts will automatically do the counting and then print out the results in several copies before the machines relay online the tabulated results to the municipal level,” he said.
He said that for the national elections, the winners can be determined within 72 hours because that was the assurance relayed by Smartmatic which provided the VCM’s for Monday’s elections.
Ignacio said that special SD cards from telecom firms would be used in the VCM’s to ensure fast transmittal of the votes.
