The government is exhausting all efforts to ensure stable power supply when Filipino voters troop the precincts and elect a new set of leaders in May through automated polls.

But in case of power outages during the elections, Deputy Presidential Spokesman Gary Olivar said they are still open to holding manual elections of national and local leaders.

Olivar said the Commission on Elections (Comelec) could still fall back on the manual counting of votes and still ensure clean and credible democratic exercise if power interruptions are reported in some areas.

“The important thing is we are doing everything to resolve the short- term crisis in Mindanao through the state of calamity declared by the President. We have assurances that the lack of power will be extremely unlikely as a reason to disrupt the elections,” he said over government radio.

“If all else fails, we can still count manually. We have done that in the past. This is not actually automated elections but automated counting and canvassing. That’s the difference,” he added.

President Arroyo has placed Mindanao under a state of calamity and approved several short-term measures to quickly raise the power reserves of the region without legislative intervention.