By Raadee Sausa October 17, 2020 Rep. David "Jayjay" Suarez ...
October 17, 2020
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| Rep. David "Jayjay" Suarez |
LUCENA CITY - A lawmaker was successfully defended the P14.5-billion budget for Commission on Elections (Comelec) for next year.
Led by Rep. David "Jayjay" Suarez of Quezon as sponsor for National Budget of different agencies and also part of being the vice chairman of Committee on Appropriations.
The Comelec, earlier, initially proposed a P30.673-billion budget for 2021, but the Department of Budget and Management slashed it to only P14.565 billion.
Of the proposed P23 billion for the lease of machines and other preparatory activities for the general elections, P8.8 billion has only been approved in the National Expenditure Program.
"We expect that we will have more voters by then because year on year, the list of voters increases. When voters increase and crowd in polling places over one machine, that would be more unsafe, given the pandemic today," Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said.
"One of the cornerstones of that campaign is to ensure na mas kaunti ang gagamit per machine [that there will be lesser voters assigned for each machine], which means we're going to need more machines than the ones that we have now," he said.
Jimenez said that a huge chunk of their proposed budget is intended to increase the number of vote-counting machines (VCMs) to lessen contact, assuming a "new normal" scenario with no coronavirus vaccine.
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