Comelec asked to grant overtime pay due to extended poll duty hours

MANILA — A teachers' group urged the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to grant additional pay to poll workers who were forced to work overtime due to malfunctioning vote-counting machines (VCMs).

Monday's national and local elections were marred by malfunctions of over a thousand VCMs across the country, delaying the voting process in their polling precincts, which are supervised by electoral boards that are mostly composed of teachers.

"Sobrang abuso na sa kanilang paggawa kung hindi sila bibigyan ng karagdagang kompensasyon sa mas mahabang oras ng pagtatrabaho," Alliance of Concerned Teachers secretary general Raymond Basilio said in a statement issued late Monday.

Basilio said the poll body and other concerned government agencies "should exert all efforts to give justice to our hard-working electoral board members who are bearing the brunt of Comelec's ineptitude."

• Reports of VCM glitches, power outage mar start of Halalan2022

In Quezon City, some teachers at Old Balara High School have been on poll duty for more than 24 hours.

• Ilang guro, mahigit 24 oras nang nagsisilbi ngayong halalan

A teacher in Caloocan also lost consciousness after working as electoral board chairman for more than a day.

The Comelec has hiked the honoraria of poll workers in this year's election. They will get the following rates:

• Chairperson of electoral board (EB) - P7,000
• Members of EB - P6,000
• DESO - P5,000
• Support staff - P3,000
• Medical personnel - P3,000

• Comelec OKs pay hike for 2022 poll workers; fully-vaccinated 'preferred'

Teachers will also be taxed 20 percent on their poll duty pay.

More than 647,000 teaching and non-teaching personnel from the DepEd are serving in this year's elections, data from the agency showed.

— With a report from Jeff Caparas, ABS-CBN News