DepEd: Zamboanga, BARMM, NCR logged most poll issues

Zamboanga Peninsula, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), and the National Capital Region (NCR) logged the most election-related reports, according to the Department of Education.

In a statement by the Education Department on Tuesday, the DepEd Election Task Force (EFT) received 603 election-related incidents, with the most common issues including vote counting machine malfunctions, irregularities in ballots and receipts, and voter list concerns.

“Most of the concerns were resolved at the regional and division ETF counterparts while some were endorsed to Comelec for appropriate action,” DepEd said.

Despite said incidents, DepEd Undersecretary and Election Task Force (ETF) Chair Malcolm Garma noted that the elections proceeded without major issues.

“In line with the assessment of the COMELEC and other agencies, we can say that overall, the elections were conducted smoothly,” said Garma.

Education Secretary Sonny Angara acknowledged the role of teachers and staff in the conduct of the polls. There were over 660,000 education personnel who served as poll workers, out of the 758,549 deployed nationwide.