Teachers under the banner of Teachers’ Dignity Coalition (TDC) plan to boycott their participation in the upcoming May 10 national polls if the Commission on Election (Comelec) would continue to deny their appeals regarding the issue of massive disenfranchisement.

TDC national chairperson Benjo Basas said this is one of the major issues that will be tackled during the group’s national executive committee meeting Sunday.

“The Comelec is pushing us to this drastic measure because they continue to ignore our demands and would not make a decision as early as now,” he said in Filipino.

The members and officials of TDC already trooped to the poll body’s main office in Intramuros, Manila last March 12 and met with its officials to talk about the issue.

The Comelec, through Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal, committed to tackle the matter but as of now, no decision has been made regarding TDC’s appeals.

With 25,000 members, TDC appeals for verification of their registration as voters; reactivation of those who were activated; transfer of registration of those who are registered in places other than their work assignments; and special registration of teachers to prevent disenfranchisement.

TDC complained the sudden deactivation of many teachers from the voters’ list due mainly to their “failure” to vote in the past elections.

Still according to him, all teachers who have served the past elections have also cast their votes in the precincts where they are assigned as members as Board of Elections Inspector (BEI).

“The problem is, those votes are not reflected in the book of voters – but definitely it’s not the teachers’ fault,” he added.

The election laws automatically deactivate a voter who fails to cast his votes in two consecutive national elections.

However, the past Comelec resolutions allowed teachers to cast their votes in the precincts where they are assigned and actually allot three excess ballots specifically for the use of BEI.

Basas explained that TDC has been receiving complaints from the field especially from Metro Manila localities where in most cases, teachers’ registration have been deactivated, some of them are registered voters in another place and some are not registered voter at all.

“All of them were disallowed to sit as members of the BEI, worse, all of them could not participate in the coming elections even as voters,” he said.

He also added that in the 2007 local and national elections, the Comelec allowed and actually compelled all the teachers, regardless of their registration to serve as members of the BEI and were allowed to vote.

“Now, the Comelec seems to be strictly implementing the law, perhaps because they do not need many teachers as they did in the past elections,” he explained.

Basas said the automated election system (AES) has reduced the BEI requirement from 800,000 to about 300,000 teachers.

“It is a discrepancy on the part of Comelec but some election officers have verified the list submitted by the school, some did not. And those teachers who do not possess the registration requirement and will serve as members of BEI may encounter problems in the future.” Basas added.

The TDC has consistently notified the Comelec of this concern, however, the poll body failed to respond to this urgent matter for the teachers.