By Bong Pedalino

Southern Leyte (May 13) -- Eighteen defective data cards located in ten local government units (LGUs) of this province caused anguished delay in the proclamation of winners in the respective localities four days after the automated elections -- and the days of waiting may wore on if no new flash cards will come.

A collateral effect to this technical glitch was that the provincial canvass also got stalled, since no data from the field can be uploaded in the canvassing and consolidated system (CCS) unless all the ten LGUs can send in their complete, 100% results in electronic mode.

Sources at the provincial office of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said someone was already personally sent to get the new compact flash (CF) cards, stressing that for now a physical retrieval of the new CF cards, and bringing those to the concerned places, is the ultimate solution.

Macrohon led the list of places with four defective CF cards located at barangays Amparo, Sindangan, Buscayan, and Flordelis, while five others -- four towns and one city -- had two defective CF cards per LGU.

These included the towns of Liloan, at barangays Poblacion and Pandan; Limasawa ? at barangays Triana and San Agustin; San Francisco -- barangays Anislagon and Bongbong; Sogod ? barangays Buac Daku and Kanangkaan; and Maasin City ? barangays Pansaan and Maria Clara.

The rest of the LGUs had one barangay affected in each one of them: barangay Nava in Hinunangan; Cabagawan in Saint Bernard; Rizal in Tomas Oppus; and Sabang in Malitbog.

This list was taken from a document signed by Atty. Antonio Gulay, Provincial Election Supervisor, dated May 11, 2010, 6:30 in the afternoon.

In other words, a day immediately after the polls, Comelec higher-ups were already duly appraised and made aware of the problem in the province but the expected solution was not easy in coming.

Gulay had told PIA he saw no resort other than waiting for the alternate CF cards to be around so the affected LGUs can go on with their canvass and transmit the results to the provincial level either through electronic submission or by personally carrying the memory cards when signal is weak.

Today, May 12, two LGUs -- Hinundayan and San Juan -- did just that, wherein the concerned Election Officers brought the data to the provincial canvass board to upload, in addition to Padre Burgos which was received in a similar manner May 11.

So far, complete, official result from only nine LGUs had been received by the provincial canvass board, those Anahawan, Bontoc, Libagon, Pintuyan, San Ricardo, and Silago -- all these six LGUs transmitted electronically.

In Maasin City, proclamation was put on hold pending the arrival of the two new CF cards.