More than 9,000 teachers and support staff of the Department of Education (DepEd) in Negros Oriental will be deployed for poll duty during the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections (BSKE) on October 30.

Lawyer Eliseo Labaria, acting provincial election supervisor of Negros Oriental, told the Philippine News Agency yesterday that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) is almost done with the training of the DepEd personnel.

Ninety percent of them have already been trained for election duty, he said.

The DepEd personnel to serve in the BSKE include 8,490 electoral board members, 549 election supervisors and 549 support staff.

They will be fielded at the different voting precincts in the 549 clustered voting centers in the province.

Labaria said there is no need to train Philippine National Police personnel to act as board of election inspectors or electoral board members as there are more than enough teachers and technical support teams for this.

“It is only in extreme situations that we might need the assistance of the PNP to serve on the electoral board, but I don’t think that this will be necessary in Negros Oriental. If ever that happens, it will be a last-ditch effort because we have some reserves,” he said. (PNA)