Sulu provincial employees led by Gov. Sakur Tan attend a flag raising ceremony in Patikul town. Tan leads Tuesday, July 8, 2008 the inauguration of the newly-renovated Commission on Elections (COMELEC) just besides the Capitol Building. COMELEC Commissioners Rene Sarmiento, Lucenito Tagle, Nicodemo Ferrer were in Sulu to inaugurate the elections office whose P5-million funding came from the Sulu provincial gpvernment, says lawyer Vidzfar Julie, the deputy regional elections chief. (Mindanao Examiner Photo)
SULU, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / July 8, 2008) – More than 12,000 policemen and soldiers will be deployed in the Muslim autonomous region to guard next month’s elections.
Police and military assured the August 11 polls in the autonomous region will be clean and peaceful. “We see peaceful elections ahead. We have enough security forces to guard the polls,” Elections Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer told the Mindanao Examiner.
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 Sulu Gov. Sakur Tan and inaugurated the COMELEC provincial office in Patikul town.
Tan also brought the COMELEC officials and their assistants to different beaches and led a tour of the Mount Datu, which overlooks several towns of Sulu.
Julie said the 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 Malakanyang,” he said, referring to the Presidential Palace.
The old COMELEC office, just besides the Provincial Capitol Building, was dark and small, but now boasts of glass and marble designs and several huge rooms and 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 actual trainings on the usage of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and automated counting machines (ACMs) 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 which 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. (Mindanao Examiner)
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