BAGUIO CITY - Officials of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) have started surveying the provinces to check the reliability of power supply, Internet connectivity and mobile phone signals to ensure that the 2010 elections would go on smoothly.
Comelec Commissioner Armando Velasco on Monday said the poll body and representatives of Smartmatic, the firm that won the contract for poll automation, would know by December the problem areas and would start preparing contingency measures.
Representatives of Smartmatic are accompanying Comelec officials in the survey, said Velasco, who spoke in a forum on poll automation at the Saint Louis University here on Monday.
Velasco said while they consider communication infrastructure as one of the potential problems in the automated election, the biggest challenge is still its integrity.
"The challenge next year will be more on the credibility of the election [process]… [from] casting of ballots [to] transmission of the results. The votes will be [all] accounted [for] and [the results] will reflect the true will of the electorate," Velasco told reporters here.
He said the voting machines have enough power since their batteries could run for 16 hours. But the Comelec, he said, has prepared contingency measures to ensure power supply during and after election day.
He said the Department of Energy committed to provide back-up power sources.
Julius Torres, Comelec Cordillera director, said the agency would install generator sets in various areas in the region to ensure power supply.
Ferdinand Rocero, Cordillera coordinator of Smartmatic's regions management unit (RMU), said they have started testing mobile phone networks of telecommunication firms Smart and Globe to determine their reliability.
He said if mobile phone signals in any area were found to be weak or failing, satellite links would be installed to ensure the immediate transmission of election results.
Technicians will also be assigned in areas to repair the machines if needed, he said.
Adelino Tabangin, also a Cordillera coordinator of Smartmatic's RMU, said aside from the mobile phone signals and power supply, they were also surveying the areas in the provinces for logistics.
He said they had to check the accessibility of remote areas so they could plan how and when the machines would be transported.
"We have to know the situation in these areas so we will know how the machines will be deployed. For example, in Tineg, Abra, there is a village that can be reached only after hiking for several days. These are the things that have to be considered," he said.
He said they also considered airlifting the machines that would be difficult to reach by land.
Velasco said the Comelec and Smartmatic team is also studying the peace and order situation in various areas in the deployment of machines.
"These are durable machines. We would only distribute spare [machines] in areas where there are possibilities that these would be stolen or destroyed," Velasco said.
Torres said the Comelec would recommend sending additional policemen and soldiers to election hot spots in Cordillera, such as areas in Abra and Kalinga, to secure the machines.
"These are the areas which traditionally have problems on peace and order. We will make sure that the machines will not be stolen or destroyed," he said.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
