The Commission on Elections on Thursday said that it will pay P2,000 in additional honorarium to all public teachers who will render their services as members of the Board of Election Inspectors in the May elections.
At the signing of the memorandum of agreement among the Comelec, the Department of Education and the Department of Science and Technolog Chairman Andres Bautista disclosed that the commission en banc has approved the additional honorarium for BEI members.
“While they are undergoing training, we have approved a small amount to give them so they do not have to spend out of their own pockets,” Bautista said.
He said the amount will immediately be given to the BEI members as soon as they attend the training, which will start on March 1 and will last for a month.
The P2,000 extra alllowance brings to P6,500 the total honorarium to be received by the BEI members.
Based from the Comelec Resolution No. 10031, the chairperson and members of the BEIs shall receive a per diem at the rate of P1,000 a day for three days plus additional P500 each for the verification and sealing of the Book of Voters, for the final testing and sealing of the vote counting machines, and for transportation allowance for a total per diem of P4,500.
Bautista said the Comelec will need an estimated 300,000 public school teachers to man the 95,000 clustered polling precincts nationwide.
He reiterated that the impending passage of the law making it non-mandatory for public school teachers to serve as BEIs does not pose a problem for the Comelec.
“As of today, there are 650,000 public school teachers according to DepEd. They are looking to hire another 65,000 to 70,000 teachers. We will only need only 300,000 teachers. So less than half of the total,” the poll chief noted.
Under the Omnibus Election Code, the BEI should be constituted by a chairman and two members, who must be public school teachers.
On Tuesday, Congress passed the measure making election service non-compulsory to public teachers and is just waiting for the signature of President Aquino.
For its part, the DoST will certify 100,000 public teachers who will serve as BEI as being information technology-capable.
DoST Secretary Mario Montejo expressed confidence that many of the public school teachers will be certified as IT- capable.
“We have been doing this twice already. We have had two very successful processes and we don’t see any major or even minor problem this third time,” Montejo said adding that 90 percent of teachers have been certified in previous elections.
According to Republic Act No. 9369 or the Poll Automation Law, “at least one member of the EIs shall be an information technology-capable person, who is trained or certified by the DoST to use the automated election system”.
Meanwhile the group of public school teachers lauded the Senate approval of Election Service Reform Act on third and final reading.
The bill seeks to make election duty non-compulsory for state teachers.
“Under the existing laws, teachers are compelled to work as election inspectors and a mere refusal may constitute an election offense.” Benjo Basas said, the group’s chairperson.
“Thus, we are thankful that this bill, which we are pushing since we were established in 2006 has reached this far and I believe it will soon be enacted into law because the House gave its similar affirmation last year,” he added.
Basas said teachers are thankful for the support of the legislators particularly Representative Fred Castro of Capiz and Senator Koko Pimentel, the respective chairpersons of House and Senate suffrage committees.
“We believe the P3,000 total per diem for members of the BEI is not enough to compensate our teachers, this is one of the reasons why we want to make this duty optional,” Basas explained.
The group last year said that per diem for 2016 elections should be raised to P10, 000 for every BEI member, but the Comelec Resolution 10031 relating to composition, appointment and compensation of the BEI retained the P3, 000 honoraria, Esra provides for a total of P6, 000 for BEI chairman and P5, 000 for two other members.
“In the absence of law, the Comelec en banc may decide on our request for higher compensation,” Basas said.