Comelec unpreparedness

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor NANETTE L. GUADALQUIVER Busines Editor CEDELF P. TUPAS Sports Editor (On Leave) RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

When will the Commission on Election be able to anticipate problems and do its job properly? Yesterday, television footages from Metro Manila showed a mass of people pushing and jostling before the Comelec office in Manila, all of them hoping to register for the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections that have been announced for October 29 this year.

It was appalling to see the crowd become so unruly, and later developing into a stampede that caused panic among those hemmed in by the impatient men and women, many of whom claimed to have been waiting there since early in the morning. The accompanying report said 18 people passed out from the heat, the exhaustion, and probably hunger, too, since several said they couldn't leave their spaces as they may no longer get near enough later.

It had been an announcement from the Comelec that had drawn those people to their offices all over the country. The call to the people to come and register was answered wholeheartedly by prospective voters who want to exercise their right of suffrage in the next election. After all these years of supervising registrations and elections, how come the Comelec still cannot estimate the number of registrants who will answer their call?

One of the reasons given for the SNAFU, (situation normal, all fouled up) is the lack of data capturing machines and other equipment necessary for the registration. So why have these needs not been anticipated? And why did they allocate only one week for the registration?

There must be something terribly wrong, indeed, when we have a poll body that cannot ensure that votes can be counted and the winners proclaimed in the shortest possible time, and not after two months, and cannot prepare to register voters within a reasonable time. The registration problem in Manila is probably replicated in most other Comelec offices in the country. Bacolod and Negros Occidental are among them already.*