By BEN BALCE, Associate Editor
and PAT JARED V. PANGANTIHON
Correspondent

THE Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) and the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) expect a big turnout in Monday’s general elections.

“Tingali mga 80% o labi pa tungod sa interes sa mga tao sa umaabot nga eleksyon,” said PPCRV Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro coordinator Bobby Villaluz.

All over the archdiocese, Villaluz said they recruited 5,000 volunteers to cover the city, including the two provinces (Misamis Oriental and Camiguin), and two-component cities of El Salvador and Gingoog.

PPCRV’s volunteers include church workers in different ministries and the parish youth coordinating council of the Archdiocese, according to Villaluz.

“We have to cover some 1,938 cluster precincts for the entire archdiocese,” he said.

Villaluz said with 372, 000 registered voters in Cagayan de Oro alone; they will cover 532 voting precincts.

He said Misamis Oriental and Cagayan de Oro have a total of 1,605 cluster precincts while 333 are in Camiguin province.

Despite the pandemic, Villaluz said the PPCRV expects more Filipinos will exercise their right to vote on Monday.

“Gusto sa mga tawo nga madungog. Sigurado ko nga mogawas sila ug madungog ang ilang mga tingog,” said Villaluz.

He said they will keep watch and ensure the whole election process is clean, honest, peaceful, and orderly.

He said they will also entertain complaints or reports on alleged election offenses and violations and other related election fraud.

With the citizen’s arm of the Commission on Elections, PPCRV will also be installing an assistance desk in polling centers to aid voters during the Election Day, according to Villaluz.

He said they will make a report on poll watchers who will take part in the distribution of ballots.

Villaluz said their volunteers will also position in various polling places to observe and monitor if there are glitches in the conduct of the election.

“I-monitor sad nato kung naa bay mga problema sa ballots like nasulatan na or kung nag-apil og distribute ang mga watchers,” he said.

Meanwhile, at the City Central School’s testing of the Vote Counting Machines (VCM) the machines were fed sample ballots to check for accuracy.

Three machines were found to misread the ballot and gave out an error message and had to be checked by technicians.

After calibrating the machines, they were tested again and found to be working correctly already.

Duque A. Caguindangan, Department of Education supervising officer, said that preparations are in place should there be a power outage or loss of transmitted signal, with backup batteries for the machines, emergency lights, and even a BGAN backup transmitter.

“Wala man problema sa transmission kay kusog man signal diri. Sa bukid mao posible ma problema ana,” Caguindangan said.

Cogon police Senior Master Sergeant Daniel Bibal said that every polling precinct has a police officer assigned.

“I don’t foresee any threat in this polling area but we are still vigilant,” said Bibal.

Meanwhile, Namfrel in Cagayan de Oro and Misamis Oriental aside from mobilizing volunteers to oversee poll precincts also launched the Namfrel app for voters.

Namfrel Coordinator for Cagayan de Oro-Misamis Oriental Nestor Banuag, Jr., said their local chapter needs the fastest means of communication to send reports, whether through phone calls, SMS, Messenger, or email.

“Smart’s wide network reach will be a huge help for our field volunteers,” said Banuag adding that this is the fourth time to partner with Smart, and they are very grateful for the generous assistance.