Cops take part in local absentee voting

SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga, Philippines — Personnel of the Central Luzon police participated in the absentee voting that started yesterday and will continue until May 1.

Brig. Gen. Napoleon Joel Coronel, Central Luzon police director, said 1,386 personnel of the regional police, including 115 from the regional headquarters and mobile force battalion, cast their votes.

Absentee voting allows police personnel to cast their votes ahead of the official election date, which is May 13, provided they applied to be part of the early voting.

Those who joined in the absentee voting can only vote for candidates running for the Senate and party-list.

Meanwhile, Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Oscar Albayalde advised voters to vote wisely.

“Take the money being offered by politicians, but vote wisely on election day,” Albayalde said, as he admitted it is difficult to catch people involved in vote-buying.

“We have yet to see candidates disqualified for engaging in vote-buying,” he said.

Albayalde warned voters who choose candidates based on bribe money rather than on their qualifications.

He urged police officers to take part in the electoral process and vote for their respective candidates.

“We encourage them to vote. Most of them are stationed in places where they are registered so they can vote early,” he said.

Close to 5,000 police officers nationwide will participate in the local absentee voting today, including 163 others who are assigned at Camp Crame.

Albayalde said the officers should leave their firearms outside of polling precincts when they cast their votes.

“They can vote in uniform provided they are not armed,” he said.

Baseless

The Philippine embassy in Moscow yesterday denied claims that they do not have enough ballots for the overseas absentee voting.

Ambassador Carlos Sorreta assured Filipino voters in Russia, Armenia, Belarus and Kazakhstan that the embassy has enough ballots for all voters.

Sorreta said there are also enough ballots for voters registered elsewhere and who will be verified by the Commission on Elections.

He said the Comelec and the Department of Foreign Affairs-Overseas Voting Secretariat sent enough ballots. – With Emmanuel Tupas, Pia Lee-Brago