BACOLOD CITY — The regional director of the Commission on Elections in Negros Island Region (NIR) has asked two city mayors in Negros Occidental to shoulder the honoraria of the 841 support staff hired by Comelec during the 2023 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan polls.

Lawyer Lionel Marco Castillano, Comelec regional director for NIR, said he has met with the mayors of the cities of Himamaylan and Kabankalan to ask for their help.

Each support staff was supposed to receive P5,000 as payment for their service. There were 616 support staff hired in Kabankalan and 225 in Himamaylan who have not been paid yet.

Castillano admitted he committed an "honest mistake" in hiring the services of the support staff, which is allowed during national elections, but not during the barangay and SK elections.

The hiring of support staff, most of them public school teachers, was not included in the Comelec budget for the barangay and SK elections.

"Comelec chairman George Garcia ordered me to find ways to pay the support staff because they deserve to be paid for their work," Castillano said.

"Our NIR legal officer has issued a legal opinion as the legal basis that will enable the LGUs to pay the honoraria without being flagged by the Commission on Audit."

Hopefully, he said the city councils will see the way so that the support staff can be paid at the earliest possible time so they will be encouraged to serve in the next polls.

"Teachers are the front liners in elections whose success depends on them," Castillano said.