SAN ILDEFONSO, Ilocos Sur – Science and Technology Undersecretary Fortunato T. dela Peña Sunday reminded that March 30, Tuesday will be the last day for members of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) to be certified by the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) for the launching of the first automation of elections on May 10 in the country.

This was announced by Dela Peña during his visit to the Philippine Science High School – Ilocos Region Campus in San Ildefonso, Ilocos Sur Friday.

DoST is a member of the advisory council headed by the chairman of the Commission on Information Communication’s Technology concerning the poll automation. It is also a member of the steering and evaluation committees of the Commission on Election (Comelec), and is in – charge in certifying the members of the BEI.

According to Dela Peña, more than 160,000 applicants, who are mostly teachers or former BEIs in the past elections, are still expected to take the examinations for BEIs for automated polls which started last March 1.

Passers of the examinations will be assigned to operate the 80,000 Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines for the automated polls as one PCOS machine is intended for each of the country’s 80,000 clustered precincts.

“Actually, we have a total of 407 certifiers all over the country. The schedules of certification are every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday until March 30,” Dela Peña said.

“We are expecting that more than 80,000 from the 160,000 target BEIs applicants will pass the examination administered by our agency. So far, we are expecting the lowest passing rate of examinees at 67 percent but most of the examinations we conducted nationwide as of presstime had a passing rates of more than 90 percent,” he added.

He disclosed that at least one BEI certified by DoST is capable in attending and operating the PCOS machine.

For Region 1, Michael John Maquiling, Ilocos region’s lead certifier, reported that BEIs’ applicants from the three provinces in the region - Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur and La Union - had finished their examinations. The examinations for the province of Pangasinan ended Saturday.

As to the passing rates of BEIs, Maquiling said that in Ilocos Norte, the passing rate of examinees was 95.88 percent in which 1,286 took the examinations but only 1,233 passed and 53 failed.

For La Union, a total of 1,446 had applied for examination but only 1,407 passed with a rate of 97.30 percent. In Ilocos Sur, at least 1,484 took the examination with a passing rate of 97.31 percent or at least 1,444 passed while the failing rate was at 2.29 percent. Ilocos Sur had at least 862 clustered precincts with at least 387, 057 voters as of January 9, 2010.

Lawyer Joel Gines, La Union Election Supervisor, disclosed that those who failed in the examinations were old teachers who do not have computer knowledge. However, those who failed in the examinations could still serve on Election Day as they would be assigned to assist DoST-certified BEIs. He said more than 720 PCOS machines are needed in La Union.