00:00This is GMA Regional TV News.
00:06Four people were injured after a motorcycle collided with a car in Santa Barbara, Pangasinan.
00:13A small vehicle suddenly overtook the car in front of it.
00:18The motorcycle collided with another vehicle on the other lane of Barangay Gegesangin.
00:24The two drivers and their passengers were injured in various parts of the body.
00:29However, a meeting was held to settle the two cases.
00:41One hundred twenty-five days before the election in May,
00:44Comelec is already on Day 2 of printing balotas.
00:48We will talk to Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia.
00:52Good morning and welcome to Balitang Hali.
00:55Good morning Ma'am Connie and to our countrymen, good morning to you too.
00:59Yes sir, the target is to finish printing balotas by the middle of April.
01:03What is the scenario or challenge that Comelec may face so that balot printing will not finish on time?
01:12Although our machines are new, and this is a state of the art,
01:18but the two machines need to print at least 950,000 balotas or at least one million balotas every day.
01:28If this cannot be reached, we may not be able to comply with our April 14 timeline,
01:37which is to finish printing balotas.
01:39Secondly, Ma'am Connie, if our people are slow in manual verification of the balotas,
01:47and then the machine verification of the balotas,
01:51our countrymen should understand that the balotas,
01:55they will check if the size is correct, the color is correct, the names are correct,
02:01and then they will feed one by one to the machines,
02:05if we find out if they will accept or reject the machines.
02:08All right. What provinces are we printing first for now?
02:15For now, we are printing in Bangsamoro first,
02:18and the next is like Pag-asa Island in the Batanes area of Palawan,
02:25because it's too far.
02:27The strategy is to print the ones that are further away.
02:32The local absentee voting along with the overseas absentee voting will be finished last night.
02:40Okay. Once the printing is finished, where will you store and how will you secure the official printed balotas?
02:49All of them will be on standby in the National Printing Office because it's already secured there.
02:54After that, before it can be deployed to each province, each town and city,
02:59it will be placed in our warehouse.
03:01It's a very high security measure that we will implement to ensure that each balota is protected.
03:09After that, it will be delivered to different treasurers of each province, town and city.
03:17Under our law, the balotas and election paraphernalia are under the custody of the treasurers of each province, town and city.
03:27All right. You also continued the printing of balotas.
03:30How about the disqualification cases of some of our candidates?
03:37All of them that we disqualified as having a finality because they did not receive a restraining order,
03:43their names are no longer included in the balot cases that are being printed by Comelec.
03:49Those who are motioned for reconsideration because their cases are pending and the decision is not final,
03:55their names are likely to be included in the balotas.
03:58Whatever is pending in our highest court, I don't want to pre-empt or give pressure to our Supreme Court.
04:06Whatever the Supreme Court says, we will comply with their orders.
04:11Okay. The camera is urging to postpone the Bangsamoro elections next year.
04:17Is there a change in your preparations for this?
04:21Because we prioritized Bangsamoro as a signal that as far as the Comelec is concerned,
04:28even if there is a pending bill, we will continue our preparations.
04:32Whatever happens later on, that's a political decision.
04:36But as far as the Comelec is concerned, we cannot ignore the printing of balotas,
04:42especially the 2.2 million balotas for Bangsamoro.
04:46Okay. And what is the tightness that you will hide from the candidates that on Sunday, January 12,
04:52the election period has already started?
04:55Especially the incumbent officials of the local government or the national government.
05:01You know that the transfer of employees by the government is strictly prohibited.
05:07The transfer, promotion, appointment, and suspension of the commission elections is not allowed.
05:14That is a criminal case of imprisonment for up to six years and that is also a ground for disqualification.
05:22And of course, all the security guards, those who are detailed in providing security,
05:32we have a gun ban and we need to have an exemption.
05:36If not, aside from arresting all of them, we will also sue them.
05:43All right. Thank you very much, Chairman, for your time.
05:48Thank you very much, Connie. Long live.
05:50That was Comelec Chair George Erwin Garcia.
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