TEACHERS who rendered additional hours of duty during the May 9 local and national elections due to malfunctioning vote counting machines may get an additional pay of P3,000, the Department of Education said yesterday.
Education Secretary Leonor Briones said they have proposed the additional pay to the Commission on Elections.
“The DepEd Election Task Force headed by Undersecretary Alain Del Pascua has proposed to Comelec an additional pay of P3,000 across the board for the extra hours rendered by some teachers due to VCM and SD card issues,” Briones said.
In response, the Comelec said the amount being eyed as additional honoraria cannot be less than P2,000.
In a press conference, Acting Comelec Spokesman John Rex Laudiangco said: “We will not go below P2,000 as that is already the amount (given) in 2019.”
Laudiangco said 915 teachers rendered additional poll duty.
“The amount will be subject to the availability of funds and, of course, in accordance with accounting and auditing rules,” said Laudiangco.
Around 2, 000 VCMs malfunctioned during election day last May 9. Among the glitches reported were paper jams, rejected ballots, faulty VCM scanners, printers failing to produce output and not printing properly.
Briones said the matter is up to the poll body to decide since it is responsible for the processing and releasing of election-related honoraria.
However, she said the DepEd is “proactively finding ways” to compensate the teachers who rendered election duty in accordance with the policies of the Department of Budget and Management and the Commission on Audit.
Briones also said teachers who rendered poll duty will receive their honoraria on or before May 24.
A total of 647, 812 teachers and non-teaching staff were deployed in the May 9 polls.
Of these, 319,317 were members of Election Boards (EBs), 200,627 were support staff, 38,989 were DepEd supervisor officials (DESO), 87,162 were DESO support staff and 1,717 were members of the Board of Canvassers.
Under Comelec Resolution No. 10727, an honorarium of P7,000 will be provided to the chairperson of the election board, P6,000 to the members of the election board, P5,000 to the DESO official, and P3,000 for support staff and medical personnel.
They will also be provided with a P2,000 transportation allowance, communications allowance of P1,500, an anti-COVID-19 allowance of P500 and five-day service credits.
