MANILA, April 5, 2013— The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) will remain as the citizen’s arm of the Catholic Church in the upcoming May 13 local and national elections.
Msgr. Joselito Asis said the PPCRV’s role to work with the dioceses continues, ruling out speculations that the poll watchdog is losing support from church leaders amid questions raised on its credibility.
“The mandate of the PPCRV as citizen’s arm of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines for the election remains the same,” said Asis, CBCP secretary general.
“So far, since its creation, the PPCRV has been effective in poll watching,” he said.
But the church official said the decision still lies in the hands of the local bishops whether they want to work with PPCRV or organize their own poll watchdog team.
He cited for instance the Cebu-Citizens’ Involvement and Maturation in People’s Empowerment and Liberation (C-Cimpel), the political education service arm of Cebu archdiocese.
“The PPCRV respects the decision of other dioceses. You can’t insist that. Like in Cebu… they don’t have PPCRV because they organized their own,” said Asis.
Aside from Cebu, he said that there are other dioceses that did not organized their own local PPCRV chapters “even before”. (CBCPNews)
