CANLUBANG, Calamba City (PNA) -– The barangay election here in this vote-rich barangay and home of industrial parks and economic zones was generally peaceful.
But the early opening of the voting precinct had fewer voters casting their votes at the San Ramon de Canlubang Elementary School.
The usual tracking down of the polling precinct numbers by the voters remained a problem despite efforts by the local Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) to put up the voters list in bold letters.
Voters including non-Comelec personnel volunteer workers welcomed the huge tarpaulin indicating the polling precinct map posted at the gate of the San Ramon de Canlubang Elementary School here to aid them in the polling precincts.
Some voters did not find their names on the voters’ list posted at the assigned room and complained earlier they were delisted or disenfranchised.
Some voters also noticed of “dead” persons still on the list while a few names were found in the other voters’ list in the adjacent room within the voting center.
But some barangay poll guide volunteers directed them to approach the member of the BEI to check their names with the voters’ master list and database.
While some non-poll body workers were a plenty outside of the voting center busy distributing candidates’ flyers and “reminders” and got paid for a measly sum, others volunteers however did their services for free for their kin and relatives-candidates.
A teacher-poll teller searched through the Comelec compiled file copies of the duly-accomplished form and attested the voters were registered and assigned in the polling precinct.
In an interview with the PNA here, a BEI staff disclosed that the huge number of voters started to pour in after lunch and expected some voters cast their votes hitching the last minute.
At the close of the voting by 3 p.m. the BEI supervisor estimated the election in the voting center here with 42 polling precincts at more than 90%.
Canlubang which is Calamba City’s largest barangay with some 58,000 inhabitants boasts of a vote-rich locality with about a third of its total population or three times bigger than any of the Calamba’s 53 other barangays.
Calamba is also Laguna’s largest populated component city in the province.
For the Canlubang barangay elections, four candidates ran for barangay chairmanship while 29 were registered aspirant for the seven slots for “kagawads” (barangay councilors).
The voting atmosphere here was cordial with pockets of mixing and mingling after voters cast their votes in the Filipino tradition among relatives and kin whether candidates as rivals or supporters of their kin aspirants.