Teachers as well as the voting public need to be informed about the Automated Election System (AES), according to the Teacher’s Dignity Coalition (TDC), one the major teachers’ organizations in the country, during the two-day training on AES for teachers in Caloocan, Malabon, and Navotas (Camanava) area.

The training is part of the simultaneous teachers training for the National Capital Region being conducted by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) which will run from March 1-16. The training, which started Sunday in hotels in Ermita, Manila was attended by 300 teachers from Camanava schools. In the Caloocan area alone, a total of 102 teachers from 10 schools attended the training seminar while the rest came from nearby areas.

TDC Caloocan chapter chairman Emerlando Arevalo, said majority of the teachers have a grasp of the new process. “But there is still a need for some teachers to fully understand the entire process not only the technicalities of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines,” he said.

The initiative was pursuant to the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) signed by Comelec and the Department of Education (DepEd) last Jan. 21 stating that public school teachers who will sit as Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) in the AES need more training.

According to lawyer Jonalyn Sabellano, Election Officer IV of Caloocan City Second District, this is the third batch of teacher training. So far, 672 out of the 1,568 teachers in Caloocan have already underwent training.