Public Affairs Ministry Teams Up With PPCRV for May 13 Election Watch
The Public Affairs Ministry led by Jing Alampay worked with the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, or PPCRV, the non-partisan non sectarian non-profit organization affiliated with the Philippine Catholic Church, working to ensure free, fair, and fraud-free elections in the Philippines. PPCRV had been the ‘citizen arm’ of the Commission on Elections since 2010. The PPCRV CTK chapter is headed by Augie Soliman, former CTK Public affairs Ministry head.
At the April 13 Parish Pastoral Council meeting, Jing Alampay, co-head of the Public Affairs Ministry, introduced the PPCRV then turned over the floor to Augie Soliman who called for volunteers to man the polling stations on election day, May 13. Jing then promptly formed a Viber instant messaging group and kept adding names as people volunteered their services.
The first set of volunteers from Libis, St. Ignatius, and White Plains attended the diocesan PPCRV meeting in Lantana last April 28. Later volunteers were asked to join the CTK-PPCRV seminar-meeting last May 11, Saturday, two days before Election Day, from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm., entitled ‘Basic Info about PPCRV Volunteerism During Election’. Poll watcher IDs and t-shirts were also given out at the end of the orientation. Also distributed were posters, appointment letters, and a copy of the PPCRV prayer.
Augie was supported by Joel Nava, another veteran PPCRVer who was taking the lead in White Plains and who covered the basic orientation points at the May 11 briefing. One of the things impressed on the volunteers was that polls open at 6 am and they were therefore requested to show up at the polling precincts before 6 am.
Breakfast, merienda, lunch, and dinner packs were provided for all volunteers as well as election inspectors. There were two reports of Vote Counting Machines (VCM) malfunctioning, one in Libis and the other in White Plains but these were quickly replaced. By end of voting, at 6 pm, all the volunteers had secured the 4th copy of the election returns that were intended for PPCRV.
