National Press Office

Along the lines of the brand-new printing machine launch introduced by the National Press Office in its basement Wednesday, the agency's officials specified some improvements in the machines and their control.

The NPO is required to print about 52 million ballots in 90 days; however, director Emmanuel Andaya said that with three Canon Color Stream 3000 printing machines, they can print ballots in lesser time for about 60 days.

"We are confident we can finish the job earlier," he said.

"We can print one million a day and it's up to the Comelec to receive the ballots and test them before they will be accepted."

Andaya said security will also be highly restricted from now on as visible CCTV cameras are already installed, which will run for 24 hours so that it can monitor all the actions of employees.

"If there are any complaints, we can rewind the activities," he said, explaining that printing will be done continuously with allowed rests of two hours at night and two hours during at day time to reload paper.

Operators from the NPO who run the machines underwent extensive training from German and Singaporean engineers for about one month to make sure the machines were run properly.

There will also be engineers on standby in case problems with the machine arise, with readily available kits with essential replacement parts.

Andaya also said the chance of the machine experiencing technical problems is slim since the machines have been tested for 2 months, with no risks of overheating since the basement of NPO is regulated with air-conditioning units.

"We are improving the capacity of the NPO," Andaya said. "We do this event to show the public that the NPO is prepared in doing its responsibility as the official printer of ballots."

Meanwhile, NPO assistant director, Raul Nagrampa explained the printing process which the machines worked on.

"From the paper stockroom, the paper will be delivered to the new printing machines that will churn out all the ballots," Nagrampa said.