Source : www.eBalita.net written by By Roy Pelovello

The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, the accredited election watchdog, needs about 500,000 people to monitor the May 14 elections and urged citizens to volunteer and help, the watchdog’s chairman and former Ambassador Henrietta De Villa said yesterday.

“There are about 260,000 precincts all over the country and ideally we want to have two watchers for each precinct. That’s about half a million volunteers,” De Villa said during the launching of the watchdog’s “Election Monitoring Manual” for election inspectors and people tasked with training poll watchers.

De Villa admitted that getting the volunteers to monitor the elections is not easy because of the number of people needed, “but we will try what we can and I’m very hopeful that we can do it.”

She said that around 3,100 Catholic parishes around the country have committed to help in watching the election.

“So when I announced the number of volunteers we need for the national level, I [told] the parishes that they should not be daunted, but they should concentrate themselves on the number of volunteers they will need for their particular parish,” she said.

She also admitted that many volunteers are frequently lured to watch the election precincts for political parties.

“The political parties pay, we don’t. It’s the parishes that provide some of the support to the volunteers and most of the time the volunteers themselves have to use their own money,” she said.

In problematic areas, particularly in the provinces of Lanao, Sulu and South Cotabato, De Villa said the group will address the situation by interfacing with like-minded groups that are already familiar with the situation in these areas, like the Philippine Islamic Council for Democracy.

In a press briefing yesterday, the group also launched its “Election Monitoring Manual” for election inspectors and the group’s trainors. The manual is a joint project of the PPCRV, Commission on Elections and the Department of Education and funded by the Asia Foundation.

De Villa said the manual contained everything that a poll watcher would need to know and would thus help them in their duties. She said one million copies of the manual were printed for distribution.

“We are also going to print a condensed version of the manual for our poll watchers,” she said.

Comelec Commissioner Ressureccion Borra commended the PPCRV for its track record in helping ensure free, honest and credible elections.

Borra said that there is a perception that the poll agency is incapable of doing its job, although this perception could be different from reality. He said that PPCRV’s assistance could help the poll body erase such perception. By Roy Pelovello

The vision of PPCRV

Enlightened and prompted by the Holy Spirit,
We envision to be a strong and potent Community of
Disciples, with a fervent desire to be
effective instruments of the Risen Lord
towards the attainment of:
a renewed and transformed society, with a culture
uniquely Filipino;
a political order ingrained with Gospel values;
a government truly sensitive and responsive to the
needs, aspirations, hopes and dreams of its people;
and a Church as deeply concerned with the temporal
order as she is immersed in the mission of the spiritual
salvation.

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