By GERALD LEIGH LAQUINON Correspondent TECHNICIANS and coordinators hired to operate the vote-counting machines in Cagayan de Oro and Misamis Oriental have complained again about their unpaid wages, bonuses and reimbursement, more than a month after they served in the elections. The workers expressed their dismay on their social media group after only a few received their full wages, and no one has received their bonuses and refunds for communication and transportation expense. “They are always promising us the payment week after another, but to no avail,” said Bret John Morales, a VCM technician who was assigned at the Cugman Elementary School. Morales said he only received P2,386 during the first week of June despite the promised amount of P5,000 as full salary for a primary technician. Wilson Radaza, a technician assigned at East City Central School, complained that he has not received even a single peso from iPlus, the manpower provider of Smartmatic. “I haven’t received any of my salary since final testing and sealing until today. iPlus always requests us to wait but it is already more than a month of delay,” said Radaza. Asked to comment on this matter, iPlus’ provincial coordinator for manpower who requested anonymity, said she herself and most of the technicians and coordinators in Misamis Oriental have not been paid in full yet. She said she can’t do anything about the problem since Smartmatic has a problem with its computer system that tracked the attendance on election day. “We have submitted to the national headquarters of iPlus the returned technician handbooks to verify the attendance of the technicians so they can pay us the soonest possible,” she said. She added that iPlus already gave the fund for the salaries to the Smart, who will be the one to deposit it to the Smart Money account of each “volunteer.” For the time being, the technicians and coordinators are already perplexed “after Smartmatic, iPlus and Smart seem passing the blame to each other.” “All we wanted is for us to be rewarded with what is rightfully ours in the first place,” said Morales.