Teachers on poll duty to receive honorarium right away through cash cards — Brillantes

Teachers who will be doing poll duties on May 13 will get their honorarium right away and through cash cards, Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. said Friday. “Hindi na kami siguro mahuhuli sa bayaran ng teachers. We are giving them cash cards, ibibigay na namin sa kanila pagkatapos ng trabaho,” Brillantes told reporters. “Pwede na nila i-withdraw 'yun. Hindi na kami magkakaroon ng problema sa distribution ng pera,” he added. In the past, the allowance for the teachers doing poll duties were given in cash through the election officers, who in turn will distribute it. Brillantes said the use of cash cards will prevent incidents of delay and even missing cash. “Kasi past experience would show na binibigay namin 'yung cash sa aming  election officer tapos minsan hindi naibibigay 'yung pera sa mga teachers. At saka minsan nagkakawalaan 'yung pera, hindi nali-liquidate nang tama,” he said. He added that they are now working on a memorandum of agreement with Landbank where the money will be deposited. “With the use of the cash card, ilalagay na lang namin 'yung pera sa Landbank, pupunta na lang dun sa ATM [ang teacher para mag-withdraw],” Brillantes said. Some 240,000 teachers are expected to perform election duties on May 13. Brillantes said the teachers are going to receive allowance for their training on automated election system and use of Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machine, for the final testing one week before Election Day, and for their work during the Election Day. Comelec finance department head Director Eduardo Mejos said the honorarium for each member of Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) will be P4,000. At least three teachers are assigned per clustered precincts. There are 77, 829 clustered precincts all over the country. Brillantes also said that the poll body is now in the process of “training the trainors” who would go around the country to train the teachers. They would also start with the voters education on the first week of March. He said the poll body allocated some P900 million for these. “Training ng voters para alam nilang gamitin yung PCOS. Ite-train rin ang mga BEI for the technical aspect, to make sure that there is at least one among the BEIs who have a technical knowledge of the PCOS,” said Brillantes. — KBK, GMA News