NOT enough. The decision of election officials to set up special lanes or ground floor voting places for senior citizen voters this May 13 elections will not prevent the problem.
The hardship senior citizens and persons with disability (PWDs) faced in the last political exercise, the barangay elections on May 14, 2018, should have prodded election officials to do more to prepare for this year’s polls.
The barangay elections were marked by complaints of some senior citizens and PWDs who were unable to vote because they could not find or reach their precincts while those who were able to vote had difficulty looking for their voting places in schools with multiple buildings with multiple floors.
Their difficulty pointed to the urgency to have a separate day for voting for them. As it turned out, no action was taken toward that. Special lanes in their own precincts or voting centers placed on the ground floor for them, as planned by election officials for the coming exercise, are not enough. They still would have to troop to polling places together with the millions of other voters and, given the dry spell, would have to move around in the heat.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has scheduled a three-day local absentee voting period from April 29 to May 1 to allow police, military and media members to vote early because they would be at work on election day. They will vote for senators and a party-list group. Why not include as well senior citizens and PWDs? Perhaps legislators would want seniors and PWDs to vote for local officials, after all the assistance they gave to these sectors.
There was House Bill 5661 that was approved on third and final reading on May 29, 2017, and was meant to allow senior citizens and PWDs to vote a week ahead of election day for national and local positions. The bill aims to make voting comfortable and convenient for the voters, particularly senior citizens and PWDs. Early voting for them would make the political exercise inclusive and the government responsive to their special needs. There doesn’t seem to be a counterpart measure in the Senate and, thus, no law.
As of the 2018 barangay elections, Comelec data showed senior citizen voters represented 14 percent or 8,295,626 of the registered voters. For Cebu City senior citizens, going out to vote was not only an exercise of their right of suffrage but a way also to prove they are still constituents, a requirement for them to continue to enjoy the P12,000 annual allowance from the City Government.
This law should have been pushed after last year’s barangay elections. But, legislators and local officials would prefer perhaps to count on expressions of gratitude of senior citizens and PWDs in the elections, even if these voters were to continue to suffer the crowds, lines, and heat to find their precincts.
(ninicab@sunstar.com.ph)