DAVAO CITY (MindaNews25 April) — The shipment of official ballots (OB’s) that will be used for the May 10 general elections in Davao Region is expected to arrive Monday (April 26) in this city, Election supervisor Atty. Ma. Febes Barlaan said.
Barlaan said the ballots will be delivered by Air Speed Cargo, one of the companies contracted by the Comelec to transport the OBs via Philippine Airlines flight.
Based on the “tentative schedule,” the OB’s for Compostela Valley will arrive first at 8:30 in the morning followed by those for Davao del Norte and Davao del Sur at 10:30 am and 4:30 in the afternoon, respectively, Barlaan said.
The OB’s for Davao City, which has the most number of voters in the region and in the entire Mindanao, will arrive in two batches at 6:30 and 9:30 in the evening.
“The official ballots will be sent to the (city) and municipal treasurers offices for safekeeping,” said Barlaan, the election chief for Davao del Sur and Davao City.
In the past elections, the OB’s were sent out first to the provincial offices before they were transported to the offices of the city and municipal treasurers.
Last week, the first batch of Precint Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines delivery for Davao City arrived on board Super Ferry 19 of WG&A.
Escorted heavily by the police and military, the undetermined number of PCOS machines were transported to a warehouse along R. Castillo street.
The printing of some 50.851 million ballots at the National Printing Office in Quezon City was finished ,on Thursday before dawn.
The NPO, which started printing the ballots on February 8 after several delays, used five Kodak printers that could produce about one million ballots a day.
The poll body’s Packing and Shipping Committee (PSC) started to dispatch the OB’s on Saturday, according to the notice sent by the PSC to the accredited parties, party-list groups and citizen arms.
There will only be one ballot for one registered voter on election day, the Comelec on its website said.
Davao Region reportedly has a total of 4,156,653 registered voters with Davao City topping the list with 797,214 as of March 17, 2009 records.
Davao Del Sur posted 517,024 voters, counting those from its provincial capital, Digos City, and Davao del Norte registered 505,464 electorates, including those from the cities of Tagum, Samal and Panabo.
Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental have 344,143 and 270,087 voters, respectively. (Rico Biliran/MindaNews)
//