PCG personnel to help run voting centers in BARMM
Philippine Coast Guard.
COTABATO CITY – For the first time in the country’s election history, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) will designate personnel of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) as reserve Electoral Board (EB) members for the first-ever parliamentary elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) on October 13 this year.
Comelec Commissioner Aimee Ferolino made the statement during a recent meeting between the election monitoring group Independent Election Monitoring Center and Comelec officials.
She said that around 1,000 maritime security force will be trained to manage the elections at the precinct level.
This is to give police personnel, who are the usual reserve work force to run polling centers, to give more focus on the security aspect of electoral conduct.
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Training for coast guard personnel will begin next week, with assistance from the Department of Science and Technology, to ensure that the personnel have the proper knowledge and skills to serve as members of EBs.
“The participation of coast guard personnel as electoral board members is a significant development, as it will allow the police and the Army to focus more on ensuring election security,” Ferolino told the Inquirer:
Ferolino also noted that this marks the first time in Comelec’s history that such an arrangement is being implemented, adding that the coast guard personnel to be deployed in the region will come from the PCG’s national headquarters.
Comelec has not yet announced the specific locations where the coast guard personnel will be assigned as special EB members.
Teachers are the traditional work force to run the polling centers in the country.
But in the BARMM, the Comelec normally falls short of the required personnel as many teachers opt not to serve in the elections due to various reasons, principal among these is security worries.
During the May 12 national and local elections, about 1,000 police personnel were augmented to the BARMM’s corps of precinct-level poll managers.
