Today is election day here in the Philippines for senators, congressmen, governors, mayors and other positions in the government. People will have to elect for 12 senators who will serve for six years and 250 congressmen and partylist representatives, 81 governors, 81 vice governors, 770 provincial board members, 118 city mayors, 118 city vice mayors, 1,510 municipal mayors, 1,510 municipal vice mayors, 1,322 city councilors, and 12,092 municipal councilors.

Some 45 million Filipino people are eligible to cast their votes in this election. Despite the election related violence that has happened, the Commission of Elections (Comelec) led by Chairman Benjamin S. Abalos Sr. assured that all possible measures are taken to ensure that this year’s polls will be peaceful, honest, orderly and credible. He said all of the 224,482 clustered precincts set up in 41,994 barangays, 118 cities and 1,510 municipalities will open at exactly 7 a.m. today to enable 45,028,088 registered voters to cast their vote. He said voting will be up to 3 p.m.

Polling stations are opened at 7:00 am in the morning and many areas is under tight security for election fraud. In the hotspot areas that are vulnerable to violence today in the election, police and military units were deployed to ensure that elections will be in order and peaceful.