TANAUAN, Leyte, Feb. 14, 2016 – Lay coordinators of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) in the Archdiocese of Palo takes to social media to intensifying the call for more volunteers in the coming political fray.
“We have to organize, educate and ask for their commitment to let them own and deepen their experience,” said Fr. Elmo Manching, head of the PPCRV in the archdiocese.
Seeing the importance of echoing to local volunteers the Manila training he and several members of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Action Secretariat underwent, the archdiocesan PAS will start mobilizing more people for this purpose this month of February.
He also announced more upcoming local council activities in the coming weeks.
Initially, though, Manching expressed optimism Palo Archbishop John Du will appoint priests who will be PPCRV coordinators of the seven vicariates in the diocese.
The RITE way
To accomplish their objectives, the PPCRV archdiocesan secretariat headed by Manching will adopt the RITE, meaning:
- re-orient the people about PPCRV;
- introduce to them the OGV project;
- train people to help them in poll-watching and monitoring so that they can come up with more accurate parallel countdown with the COMELEC; and
- empower them by asking priests to involve themselves so people volunteering for this work will more or less feel secure and motivated
OGV (One Good Vote) is the current advocacy campaign of PPCRV, which was discussed in the PPCRV national training in Manila. The training included the automated election system, particularly how to operate the vote-counting machine.
Non-partisan volunteers
He emphasized that volunteers, who must belong to a parish where he will serve, should be non-partisan and is allowed to vote.
Madonna Songalia, the Archdiocesan PAS lay coordinator from Tanauan, Leyte remarked, “One of the most important things that a volunteer should have is the dedication and the commitment for us to have CHAMP, and patience, too.”
She underscored the importance for the volunteer to be healthy “because we have some nights that we will not have sleep, especially during the time prior to the election day wherein we have to prepare.”
For the future generation
Pinky Nerja, a member of the Archdiocesan PPCRV monitoring team affirmed, “Volunteering for the PPCRV may come only in every election, but we should bear in mind that every vote counts as they are sacred.”
“We want the people to note that voting is not only for us but for the entire community and our future generation,” she added,
The month of February is for the organization of the council at the parish level; March for education; and April for commitment-building or the owning and deepening of the experience.
Patient, in good health and non-partisan volunteer
3Ks for One Good Vote
Since creation in 1991, PPCRV has been championing the rallying call for CHAMP with the 3Ks – kakayahan, karakter, katapatan, as criteria in choosing candidates.
“Kakayahan is that he must be capable of the office he or she is aspiring for,” explained Manching.
“He must not be greedy and not corrupt, which falls under the criterion karakter, thus we need to assess the moral quality of the personhood of the candidate.”
“Katapatan, which is a very important Christian value, is one, because we cannot intend to vote for a person who keeps on promising but does not comply with the platforms they are telling us during campaign period,” he added. (Eileen Nazareno-Ballesteros / CBCP News)
