THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) said everything is set for Monday’s polls as all vote counting machines (VCMs) and all election paraphernalia have already been distributed to the 115 polling precincts in Zamboanga City.
Lawyer Stephen Roy Cañete, second district election officer, said 41 of the 115 polling precincts are local in District 1 and 74 in District II.
If not clustered, this city has 617 precincts, 305 in the first district and 312 in the second district.
Each precinct has three board of election inspectors (BEIs).
Cañete said for the villages affected by the 2013 siege, the polling centers will be at the Zamboanga State college of Marine Sciences and Technology (ZSCMST) for the villages of Mariki, Rio Hondo, Sta. Barbara and Zone IV and Don Gregorio Evangelista Memorial School (DON GEMS) for Sta. Catalina and Kasanyangan villages.
He said the polling precincts will open at 6 a.m. until 5 p.m.
Zamboanga City has total voters of 412,795, 213,715 in the first district and 199,080 in the second district.
He said the Board of Canvassers will convene at 5 p.m. at the City Council at the R.T. Lim Boulevard to canvass the votes.
The board is composed of Cañete as chairperson with City Prosecutor Ricardo Cabaron and Division of City Schools Superintendent Pedro Melchor Natividad as members.
The Comelec has designated Omar Hamja, as the election officer in the first district since Attorney Lerdo Matildo Jr. has been reassigned to Dipolog City, the capital of Zamboanga del Norte.
Hamja is not new in the city since he has served as the election officer years ago when Zamboanga City was still then a lone congressional district.
On the other hand, Zamboanga City Mayor Ma. Isabelle Climaco-Salazar has aired an urgent appeal to all voters in the city to go out and exercise their right of suffrage on Monday.
“Let us go out and vote and vote wisely with conscience,” Salazar told the over 400,000 registered voters in the city.
She stressed that Monday’s synchronized local and national election is considered a critical moment in the country’s political history as the citizens will elect leaders who will lead the city in the next three years in the local level and six years in the national level.