Comelec to send out booklet on poll bets

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is sending out to 35 million registered voters nationwide an eight-page Voter’s Information Sheet, a booklet listing the candidates, their party affiliations, occupations and backgrounds.

Ferdinand Rafanan, the Comelec’s acting director in the National Capital Region, said the booklet should be received by voters on or before April 14.

About 5.2 million copies of the booklet will be sent out in Metro Manila alone.

Rafanan said election officers and casuals will be tapped to personally deliver the booklet if the Philippine Postal Corp. cannot accommodate the mail deliveries.

"The booklet can be used as guide for the elections instead of the sample ballots which poor candidates cannot afford to spend for," he said.

Meanwhile, Kilosbayan, headed by former Senate President Jovito Salonga, has offered its services to help Comelec enforce election regulations, particularly that on common poster areas.

In another development, Comelec chairman Alfredo Benipayo personally looked yesterday into the reported loss of 19,000 reams of watermarked security paper.

Called to the inquiry, representatives of the paper supplier, Triplex, dismissed the report, saying the volume of the alleged missing security paper would be virtually impossible to hide or spirit away because it weighs 424.26 metric tons.

Triplex told Benipayo that the "missing" paper is still in rolls and has not yet been cut into sheets.

Benipayo clarified that with the clustering of precincts, the actual number of required election returns will be about 220,000 as projected by the poll body’s statistics division. — Pia Lee-Brago