MANILA, Philippines – A recommendation to provide additional payment for teachers who manned polling precincts with defective vote-counting machines and SD cards has reached the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) policy-making body.

Commissioner George Garcia proposed to his colleagues in the seven-member Comelec en banc the extra honorarium for poll workers who were “forced to render extended election service due to defective or corrupted SD cards and malfunctioning VCMs.”

“The teachers’ loss of time to rest and be with their families, as well as their loss of opportunity to find other sources of income must be considered,” Garcia said in his memorandum dated Friday, May 13.

“In some precincts, voting took nearly 24 hours. Aside from extended service of teachers, they also had to allay the anxiety and fears of voters who complained of queueing up for long hours just to cast their votes in the said polling precincts,” his letter read.

Whether the proposed additional payment will be approved by the en banc, and how much, remains to be seen, but acting spokesman John Rex Laudiangco said the proposal was “warmly received.”

The Comelec said 915 VCMs and 469 SD cards were found to be defective on election day that they had to be replaced.

Garcia, in his letter, however, said a total of 1,867 clustered precincts encountered VCM and SD card issues. 

For the 2022 elections, teachers will receive around P8,000 to P10,000 for their election day services, depending on the role. – Rappler.com