• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
The Commission on Elections and the Office of Civil Defense is set to sign various memoranda of agreement on Thursday, to establish alternative voting centers in local government units affected by the Kanlaon Volcano eruption, and to establish a partnership for disaster risk reduction and management related to the May 12 elections.
The signing of MOAs, to be held at the Provincial Capitol Social Hall in Bacolod City, will be attended by Comelec chairman George Erwin Garcia and Undersecretary Ariel Nepomuceno, the Office of the Civil Defense Administrator.
Provincial Election Supervisor Atty. Ian Lee Ananoria disclosed on Wednesday that the MOA signing is also in connection with the establishment of alternative voting centers in local government units affected by the Kanlaon Volcano eruption.
The proposed cooperation between Comelec and OCD also included planning emergency exits for polling precincts, potentially allowing Comelec to deputize OCD to enhance safety during disasters, enabling early voting for disaster personnel, setting up Incident Command Posts during elections, and exploring other areas of collaboration.
Ananoria disclosed that Comelec chairman Garcia will also check the evacuation centers in La Carlota City, aside from attending the MOA signing ceremony.
With less than two weeks to go before the May 12 elections, local Comelec officials have been busy preparing alternative polling centers for the 12,479 voters affected by Kanlaon.
Earlier, OCD said it would not allow evacuees to return to polling centers where they used to cast their votes before the volcano erupted.
If Kanlaon’s alert level is raised to 4, the Comelec said more than 80,000 voters in Bago, La Carlota, La Castellana, Murcia, Pontevedra and San Carlos are expected to cast their votes in 22 proposed alternative polling centers.
Negros Occidental is the sixth vote rice province in the country, with more than two million registered voters, according to the Comelec.
The Commission on Elections in the Negros Island Region (NIR) has directed the Philippine National Police (PNP), the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), and other relevant agencies to cooperate with the media to effectively combat misinformation and disinformation surrounding the upcoming elections.
“I am reiterating the call made by Comelec Chairperson George Erwin Garcia during a command conference at Camp Aguinaldo for these agencies to proactively counter misinformation and disinformation by ensuring their accessibility to the media and by disseminating pertinent information through their respective social media platforms,” Comelec-NIR Director Lionel Marco Castillano said in an interview on Tuesday.
Castillano said that “disinformation poses a significant threat to our electoral system, potentially undermining the credibility and acceptability of the May 12 election results, and consequently, jeopardizing our democratic processes.”
He noted that while the electoral process this year is designed to be “highly transparent,” certain sectors, including some candidates, have expressed doubts regarding the credibility of the automated system, alleging that the vote-counting machines are susceptible to hacking.* with PNA reports
