MANILA, Philippines – Caloocan City Regional Trial Court Judge Georgina Dumpit Hidalgo was elected president of the Philippine Judges Association (PJA) in its first ever automated elections held recently.
Hidalgo won after garnering 374 votes. Judge Felix Padua Reyes was elected executive vice president with 404 votes.
Out of 770 judges nationwide, 620 participated in the elections on Dec. 3 and 4.
The automated poll was a project of Supreme Court (SC) administrator Jose Midas Marquez, who supervises all trial courts in the country.
It was one of the reforms instituted by the SC after a vote-buying controversy marred the PJA polls in 2013.
“This is a first in the 30-year history of PJA. We are happy that more judges participated in the election – even the elder judges who are not familiar with computer system,” Marquez said.
“We were expecting around 520 judges to participate based on their attendance in the convention last October. But there were 620 judges who joined because of the convenience of the new voting system,” he added.
The automated elections enabled the regional trial court judges to vote in their respective regions.
Through the e-voting system, initiated by the high court’s Management Information Systems Office, the judges no longer had to travel to Manila and attend the annual convention to cast their votes.