The three-day absentee voting for the Philippine National Police (PNP) was a flop, with only a little over 30 percent of the more than 3,000 cops availed themselves of the privilege to cast votes early.

Chief Superintendent Leonardo Espina, PNP spokesman, attributed the low turnout of police voters to the intensified police operations they launched that coincided with the April 28-30 absentee voting days.

It was recalled that the PNP leadership has hoisted heightened alert over its police units in Luzon and the Visayas and maintained the full alert status in Mindanao due to Labor Day rallies and increased attacks of the New People's Army (NPA).

Of the 3,258 policemen allowed to avail of the absentee voting, Espina said only 1,187 lawmen proceeded to various polling precincts across the country to exercise their right to suffrage.

"Others who were not able to avail of it were on duty,” said Espina in an interview.

The 17 police regional offices across the country became the polling precincts for policemen. The voting was done manually and that they were only allowed to choose national candidates – from president down to party-list.

Espina, however, said they have yet to formally receive a report from their regional offices the number of policemen who voted per region.

While there was a low turnout of votes for cops, at least 65 percent of the almost 20,000 soldiers, however, availed themselves of the absentee voting on the same three-day period.

Espina said that the number of registered policemen voters might have plunged since most of them were stricken off the list of qualified voters after failing to vote for the two consecutive national polls in 2004 and 2007.

“I, for instance, was not able to vote in 2004 and 2007 because I was doing inspection during a time that I was supposed to vote,” said Espina.

The official said that Director General Jesus Verzosa, PNP chief, also failed to vote because of his hectic schedule, which focuses much on meeting local religious and non-government groups to solicit their help in ensuring clean and orderly polls on May 10.

Most of the policemen, on the other hand, were busy escorting officials in the transport of Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines and election materials while the rest were deployed in far-flung areas to secure polling precincts this early from various threat groups.

The PNP has 130,000 uniformed personnel and Espina said most of them may not be able to even vote on May 10 since they will all be busy then securing polling precincts. He, however, remain optimistic that some of their men will be able to vote on the election day on Monday next week.

Asked of the measures that they are now mapping out for all policemen to vote in the next polls, Espina said they have yet to discuss it since they are now busy implementing security plans since it is only a few days before the May 10 elections.