eCOMELEC

Commission on Elections (COMELEC) Education and Information Chief James Jimenez announced today that winning Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) bets in the majority of areas where special polls were held last Saturday, have been proclaimed.

He said that based on initial field reports gathered by his office, special elections were “generally peaceful” and that no untoward incidences took place in the affected Barangays.

Jimenez reported that winning candidates in the recently concluded special polls were immediately proclaimed in the affected Barangay and SK precincts in Pasay City, Abra, Masbate, Northern Samar, Lanao del Norte, Buadiposo-Buntong and Taraka in Lanao del Sur.

He also noted that in the province of Sulu, all affected precincts functioned and that no failure of elections occurred. Jimenez lauded election officials and the citizens there for “refusing to bow down to terrorist threats and intimidation and persevered towards attaining a peaceful special polls.”

Days before the December 15 special elections, a bomb rocked the COMELEC Office in Patikul, Sulu and the house of Provincial Elections Supervisor Julie Vidzfar.

Jimenez however said that according to initial reports, out of more than 200 Barangays in Lanao del Sur, more than 30 failed to function. “This number is up from reports gathered over the weekend, but we are still in the process of verifying all claims of failure” he said.

The poll body has earlier pegged to 370 the number of Barangays nationwide that failed to conduct elections during the October 29, 2007 Barangay and SK polls. ###

“Everything seems peaceful so far.” This was the statement of Commission on Elections spokesman James Jimenez today as the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan special elections kicked off.

“We have been checking in regularly with our field officials,” Jimenez said, “and so far, we have not received any reports of any major disturbances or untoward incidences.”

The special elections were called as a result of the failure of several hundred precincts to function during the regular Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan polls, held last October 29, 2007.

The failures of election in the ARMM were due mainly to the refusal of Boards of Election Tellers to convene in the face of security threats. To address this particular concern, “more than a thousand Philippine National Police personnel have been deployed to provide security for the elections this time round,” Jimenez said. “Reports reaching us from the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao also indicate that the elections there will be concluded peacefully,” he added.

The Commission on Elections on Thursday, resolved to deputize members and trainees of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Region 10 and the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) to serve as Special Board of Election Tellers in connection with the special Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections tomorrow, December 15, 2007.

This move, according to COMELEC Resolution 8389, is meant to preclude the “possibility that the teachers who were the original members of the Board of Election Tellers (BETs) in Barangays of affected municipalities in the Province of Lanao del Sur, Shariff Kabunsuan and Sulu will not serve this coming December 15, 2007 Special Elections because of rampant and widespread threats, harassments, and intimidation against them.”

The poll body added that they resorted to deputize the PNP in the affected areas for poll duties in order to prevent the recurrence of violent incidents and failure of elections. ###