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May 8, 2022— The Department of Education (DepEd) launched the DepEd Mobile App and partnered with Microsoft and Grab Philippines to assist poll workers in the 2022 National and Local Elections.

“We have launched the DepEd Mobile Monitoring App that will aid us in making sure that all reports and information from our field offices are accessible. This is in addition to our new partners who will help us with the upcoming election. DepEd is very happy and confident about our preparations for this,” Undersecretary for Administration Alain Del Pascua said during the DepEd Election Task Force (ETF) National and Local Elections (NLE) Press Conference last May 6.

The DepEd Election Monitoring App, first released in 2019, is a simplified and easy-to-understand teacher reporting mechanism that will provide accurate information gathering and consolidation for election-related issues. The app will also centralize the monitoring and analysis of reports, enabling accessible responses to problems in the field.

Accessible through the DepEd Commons and using the DepEd email address, teachers can easily use the app without additional login and steps, making it readily accessible.

“The reports teachers need to make can be completed in five minutes or less. In his report, we can use the same survey we used in 2019 and add a few questions regarding PNPKI,” Information and Communications Technology Services Director Abram Abanil said.

The app is also an added communication platform to fast track the information gathered in the field to the Central Office.

Director Abanil reported that in the last election, where the agency used the monitoring app, the Command Center received over 20,000 reports compared to the 1,000 reports through the traditional emails and phone calls.

Meanwhile, DepEd, through Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones, also forged a partnership with Microsoft to widen the platform for sending reports to the field.

Through MS Teams, DepEd can speed up communication from field precincts to the Central Office. Additionally, it will also have features where issues and concerns will be categorized as channels used by the DepEd Monitoring Channels.

In addition, Usec. Pascua shared that Grab Philippines, the ride-hailing and delivery app, expressed its intent to partner with DepEd to provide services for election frontliners on Monday.

Due to the anticipated high volume of passengers likely using ride-hailing services on election day to get to and fro their designated voting precincts, Pascua said Grab would prioritize DepEd teachers and personnel serving as members of the Election Task Force (ETF).

Grab will release a special code cascaded to the ETF members to be used when booking a Grab service. Through this code, Grab riders will be notified to prioritize these bookings. According to Grab, they would deploy five marshals to select schools to assist in booking a GrabCar and any other Grab services to DepEd personnel.

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