BAGUIO CITY – About 584 of the 2,207 voters who registered for the local absentee voting (LAV) in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) have already cast their votes as of Tuesday.
Lawyer John Paul Martin, Baguio City election officer, in a report shared to the media, said 436 personnel and cadets out of the 475 from the Philippine Military Academy, cast their votes on Monday while 32 of the 34 Philippine Air Force personnel assigned at the Tactical Operations Group (TOG) based at the Loakan Airport in this city and two media practitioners also availed of the privilege.
He said 116 personnel of the Baguio City Police Office also registered for the LAV and were accommodated Tuesday at the multi-purpose hall of the city police headquarters.
“We have some registrants who will not be able to make it during the three days schedule because of schedules like the on-going “Balikatan exercises” or are on foreign training,” he added.
Comelec-CAR regional director lawyer Julius Torres said LAV is scheduled from April 28-30.
“They (voters) can only vote for the national positions and the party-list representatives and will not be eligible to vote for the local positions,” he said.
The filled-in ballots were placed in sealed envelopes that will be submitted to the committee on local absentee voting and will be fed to the automated counting machines on election day to have its details transmitted to the server and included in the general count of voters and votes cast.
Entitled to avail of the LAV are government officials and employees as well as members of the media who have active voters’ registration and who will be posted in another place to perform election duty on election day. **Liza Agoot
