GUIUAN, Philippines — Voters returned to the polls on Tuesday after Typhoon Neria tore through Eastern Samar, casting ballots at 38 polling stations set up aboard ferries and fishing boats. The municipality’s mayor survived a recall attempt by 509 votes in an election that officials say was the first of its kind in the country.
The boats, anchored in sheltered waters around Guiuan, served all the municipality’s polling places after wind and sea damage left schools and barangay halls unusable. The National Polling Authority said 47,806 of 71,233 registered voters cast ballots; it found no earlier Philippine election in its records in which every polling station in a municipality had been moved onto vessels.
A vote on anchored decks
By the time polls opened at 06:00, Neria had moved west, but waves still slapped the harbor walls. The weather bureau recorded gusts of 195 km/h (121 mph) as the typhoon crossed the province on Monday. Officials delayed voting by one day, then rejected a longer postponement after checking that the boats could remain anchored.
Canberk D. Örge, the authority’s Eastern Samar election director, said crews moved ballot boxes, voting screens and registration lists onto 16 passenger ferries and six local fishing boats. Election staff checked each vessel before opening. “We were not going to make people choose between a safe polling place and having a vote,” he said.
We had to bring the polling places to the people, not ask people to cross a damaged coast.
Canberk D. Örge, election director
The result came down to a narrow split: 23,911 voters opposed removing Serra, while 23,402 backed the recall. The remaining 493 ballots were invalid. Pedro Melo, who led the recall campaign, said he would respect the count but would ask the authority to review several disputed precinct tallies.
The cost of keeping the date
The ballot had been scheduled months earlier after a petition campaign over the mayor’s handling of a harbour redevelopment plan. Serra said the vote had now settled the question, but acknowledged that the result left little room for complacency. “Five hundred votes is not a mandate to ignore half the town,” she said.
Roberta Serra’s supporters stood on a ferry deck as officials posted the final tally, while opponents waited beside the quay for the precinct totals. Residents had spent much of Monday without power, and road crews were still clearing fallen branches from routes linking inland villages to the port.
The authority estimated that boat rentals, transport and temporary voting equipment cost ₱18 million (about €270,000), drawn from the national election budget. It said no ballots were lost and all 38 precincts completed their counts before midnight. A formal review of Melo’s tally challenge is due on Friday.
Maarit Ahola, a shopkeeper who voted from a ferry near Guiuan’s market, said the unusual polling places had not made the choice feel less serious. “The wind had taken the roof off our usual school. The ballot was still here, and so were we,” she said.
