147 cops avail of local absentee voting

By RPCRD, Police Regional Office 8
May 2, 2013

CAMP KANGLEON, Palo, Leyte – One hundred forty seven out of 355 or roughly 41 percent of the personnel of Police Regional Office 8 (PRO8) who registered as absentee voters casted their votes in the local absentee voting ahead of the May 13 midterm elections.

Notwithstanding the turnout, PRO8 Director Police Chief Superintendent Elmer Ragadio Soria stressed that people in Eastern Visayas are assured of the PRO8’s maximum service on election day as some of its personnel need not to compromise their democratic right in order to perform their crucial role of ensuring the electorate in the midterm polls.

“Much is expected from us in the elections in terms of safeguarding peace and order, so the Comelec included the PNP among the organizations that practiced absentee voting along with AFP and other media practitioners,” Soria said.

PRO8 personnel who availed in the local absentee voting exercised their rights of suffrage from Monday up to 5:00 P.M. Tuesday at the designated polling center at PRO8’s Matapat Hall in response to Comelec Resolution No. 9637 promulgated last February 13.

Majority of absentee voters are PNP personnel assigned at the Regional Public Safety Battalion 8 (RPSB 8) with 116 voters followed by those assigned at stations in Leyte province with 12 voters. Personnel from PRO8 headquarters and Eastern Samar have 8 voters each and those coming from the cities of Tacloban, Ormoc and Catbalogan had one voter from each city.

Local absentee voting refers to a system of voting whereby government officials and employees, including members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), and the Philippine National Police (PNP) as well as members of the media who are duly registered voters, are allowed to vote for the national positions and party-list representatives in places where they are not registered voters but where they are temporarily assigned to perform election duties on election day as provided for under Executive Order No. 157 and Republic Act No. 7166.

Policemen who are eligible absentee voters that failed to vote during the two-day period can still vote in the May 13 elections.

Meanwhile, Director Soria informed that PRO8 will be deploying 763 more personnel on Friday to augment the provincial and city police offices’ as security forces in pre-election police activities and in securing polling centers on election day.

PRO8 earlier deployed 50 personnel to Calbayog City last week and 267 cops to the three Samar provinces on Monday.