Election duty

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor CHERYL CRUZ Desk Editor PATRICK PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

The job of being an election inspector in the Philippines must be one of the worst in the world. First of all, you have no choice. If you are a public school teacher, you are compelled to serve as one every election. Second, in a world where guns, goons and gold play a traditional role in the conduct of elections, it has the potential to be a dangerous affair. Third, their work as election inspectors exposes them to nuisance harassment suits that some losing candidates resort to.

There is also the irony of many election inspectors being unable to vote because of some rules and technicalities that the Commission on Elections may have failed to address. Nevertheless, come election time, we have always been able to count on our public school teachers to be there to fulfill their duties as election inspectors.

The newfangled Precinct Count Optical Scan machines may have reduced tensions and the workload of the teachers during Election Day, but the efficient, orderly and fairly credible conduct of the elections still would not be possible if it were not for the public school teachers of this country.

With the kind of service to the country that has been rendered, it is disturbing to find out that more than two weeks after the elections were held, most of the P27 million that is due to the teachers and members of the 33 boards of canvassers and their support staff who served in the May 13 elections in Negros Occidental and Bacolod City, have not yet been paid to them. Most of the 6,132 teachers who served and were entitled to P4,000 each, have not yet been paid and none of the 99 members of the 33 board of canvassers, who are entitled to P10,000 each have been paid.

Just because the public school teachers are required by the Constitution to serve as election inspectors it does not mean that the COMELEC can take its time in compensating them for their efforts. If the poll body can proclaim most of the winners for the local and national elections within a week of the elections, then why is it taking it so long to perform the relatively straightforward task of compensating the teachers for the duty rendered during Election Day?*