Public school teachers from Cotabato City protested in front of the local office of the Commission on Elections on Thursday, May 5, over being replaced with untrained teaching staff for the 2022 elections.
According to a report submitted to Kontra Daya, the COMELEC-trained teachers were informed in a meeting that they would not be included in the final list of officials to be deployed for the 2022 elections, and would instead be replaced with other untrained teachers.
The teachers cited two direct violations of the Omnibus Election Code in the sudden replacement of officials.
- The replacement set of teachers are not from Cotabato City.
- The new City Election Officer is not a lawyer.
The final revised list came from the Ministry of Education of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), which supervises the appointment of election officials in the area. According to the report submitted to Kontra Daya, the city COMELEC chairman is a relative of the Minister for Education.