A member of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) assists a voter at a poll precinct in Compostela town, Compostela Valley Province during the 2013 mid-term elections. (Ace R. Morandante/davaotoday.com)
By Noveah May Simbajon, Davao Today Intern
DAVAO CITY — There will be no increase in the payment for election inspectors set to guard votes come May this year.
Marlon Casquejo, assistant director of the Commission on Elections XI, said each participating member of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) shall receive the usual honorarium of P4,500.
Casquejo said the P4,500 payment is the total of their daily P1,000 honorarium on top of an additional P1,500 allotted for the transportation expenses for three days.
The BEI is composed of the a chairperson and two members, one of whom shall be a poll clerk and a third member, and all of whom shall be public school teachers.
He said that Comelec will train more than 2,000 chairpersons and poll clerks in Davao City alone.
“We will try to train the best for the board of election inspectors to avoid glitches during elections,” Casquejo told a press conference on Monday, February 22.
“For Davao City, we have 1,280 clustered precincts since we are going to train the chairperson and the poll clerks so that will be times two,” he said.
The training will fall on the whole month of March for Davao city which will be held at the Grand Men Seng Hotel and Apo View Hotel.
The qualifications to become a BEI member include having good moral character, being a registered voter of the city or municipality, has never been convicted of any election offense or other crimes punishable by more than six months of imprisonment, has no pending election offense case, and the facility to speak and write in English or the local dialect.
Meanwhile, Casquejo said there will be 1,280 vote counting machines (VCMs) to be distributed in Davao City’s poll precincts.
The VCMs will be shipped on the third week of April and the schedule for the final testing and sealing will be on May 2-6.
Casquejo said the ballots will also arrive on the last week of April. He added that Region 11 has more than 2 million voters. (davaotoday.com)
