by Ben Serrano
July 10, 2009
BUTUAN CITY- Barely ten months left for the first ever held nationwide automated elections, the 400,000 school teachers which are expected to serve 82, 000 clustered voting centers in the country are still not ready, no less than Department of Education Secretary Jesli Lapus said.
Lapus who was rumored to run for a Senate seat in next year’s election was the keynote speaker of the 5th Mindanao Educators Congress held here for the first time in this regional center of Caraga Region, Butuan City .
Lapus who was hesitant at first to be interviewed by this writer upon prodding of his local Kabalen, full of jealous old newsman who speak to Lapus in Kapampangan dialect, never confirmed rumors that he is running for Senator in next year’s local and national elections.
Lapus never answered the question raised by this writer about allegations that he is using his position and all Cabinet members of the Arroyo administration to their advantage for their personal political ambitions at the expense of hard-earned Filipino taxpayers’ money and government machineries who plans to run for Senator in next year’s polls
Lapus on the other hand said that while it is true that the COMELEC had cut by half the number of teachers expected to serve the 2010 automated polls, he claimed, the teachers are still ill-equipped to handle an automated polls saying there is a dire need to train the teachers.
When also asked about allegations that some public school teachers in the past were accused of playing partisan politics particularly in the local level with some have still pending cases, Lapus simply ignored the question and never replied back.
Lapus however claimed that although some teachers have asked the COMELEC to exclude them in serving future elections because of many accusations including the danger it posed on their lives especially during and after election day, the Education Chief said teachers could not avoid the moral task and duty in manning poll centers nationwide.
Lapus said there is also a need for dire training in handling crisis and managing crowd control he called crisis management especially on expected poll protests of watchers from different political parties or candidates during electon day.
When asked by this writer about the time frame of the Department of Education for the May 2010 poll preparations, Lapus simply smiled and said, “it will depend on the COMELEC”.
Earlier, Comelec Chairman Jose Melo said the poll body will cut by half the number of teachers to serve as members of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) in the 2010 local and national elections.
From some 750,000 teachers that used to serve in the elections, the poll body would need only about 400,000, Chairman Melo said.
Melo noted the reduction is a result of clustering of poll centers across the country as part of the automation of the election.
In the May 2007 elections, the COMELEC had set up 240,000 poll precints. Next year, the poll body would only need 82,000 voting centers as a result of clustering.
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