ELECTION lawyer Romulo Macalintal on Monday dismissed fears of having a disrupted election due to brownouts that would pave the way for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to stay in power.

Macalintal assured that the problem on power shortage has nothing to do with Arroyo’s plan on 2010 and there will be no holdover as the President will step down on June 30 when the new President assumes her post.

He said, as election lawyer, he also believed that there will be a successful election on May 10 whether several feared for the first conduct of automated polls following series of rotational brownouts nationwide.

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Arroyo’s lawyer explained that the election is not purely automated and the Commission on Elections (Comelec) could always turn to manual voting as the need arises. “What is only automated is the counting of ballots and canvassing of returns.”

He furthered that if the fear of 30 percent failure of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines happen because of brownouts, there will still be 70 percent that could operate.

He said this could still be a lot faster than fully manual voting. “We'd still be 70 percent automated, which means 70 percent faster than the manual polls. As to the 30 percent failed PCOS, the voting being manual, then we would have a manual count and manual canvass of this 30 percent.”

Macalintal cited another means that made the election process easier is the shading of ballots, which will not take a lot of time from one voter to another.

“In other words, even if all the PCOS failed, there'd be no failure because there will still be voting by manually shading the ballots and manually counting and canvassing which will be faster than the old type of manual election since the automated ballots would only be shaded and voters will not to write the names of candidates,” he said.

No brownouts

In a separate interview, deputy presidential spokesperson Gary Olivar said there will be no brownouts happening in the election day.

Olivar said it was Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes who assured him that they will do all means to prevent brownouts during the election period up until at least the month of June.

“The Secretary disclosed that he has received assurances upon his request from the power sectors in Luzon, the power plants and the transmission operations and distributors that they will avoid placing Luzon under red or yellow alert with the possibility of brownouts,” he said.

Several areas in the metro and nearby provinces experienced rotating brownouts last January 25. The brownouts were reportedly caused by coal shortage in one Sual units resulting in generation insufficiency.

Rotational brownouts also hit Visayas last week due to shutdown of a major geothermal power plant in Leyte for preventive maintenance purposes.

Last Sunday, series of blackouts also hit Mindanao as the General Santos Area Control Center (GSACC) or the Southwestern Mindanao District experienced generation deficiency due to drop of power supply from the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).

Olivar said the Department of Energy vowed to avoid brownouts or even the threat of brownouts in Luzon.

He added that Secretary Reyes is expected to meet power sectors in Visayas and Mindanao to ask for prevention of brownouts during the stretch of election. (Jill Beltran/Sunnex)