PPCRV members urged to go on leave when campaigning

MANILA, Philippines - The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) does not see any problem with Catholics campaigning for a Catholic vote, but members of the poll watchdog group who engage in partisan politics in the coming May 13 elections will be allowed to go on leave as poll watchers.

Former ambassador Henrietta de Villa, PPCRV chair, said that individual members should decide if they would voluntarily go on leave as members of PPCRV, a Catholic-led poll watchdog that helps the government hold clean and honest elections.

Some Catholic Church associations are reportedly campaigning against candidates who voted for the passage of the Reproductive Health Law.

“We don’t see any problem there. That is already SOP (standard operating procedure) since before, if they wish to campaign for any candidate, this did not happen only with the RH. Some have relatives running and they distance themselves from PPCRV. The coordinators are just not given any job,” she explained.

“You can’t say because one is with the PPCRV, it’s bad, or if there is a move to bring out a Catholic vote, it’s bad. That’s a very sweeping judgment. We know that in a community, or even in one family, they can’t go just one way,“ De Villa said in a weekly breakfast forum at the Cafe Ilustrado in Intramuros, Manila yesterday.

She said that the freedom of people should be respected.  “When we say that, it is not because we are against those who will campaign for life, for values that we hold as sacred as Catholics and also as Filipino citizens,” De Villa added.

“PPCRV has been here since 1991. And (what) we have been doing since the very start was very clear with the bishops, also when they adopted the PPCRV as the citizen’s arm of the CBCP. We have been clear on voters education, monitoring the conduct of the elections, but our character requirement is to be non-partisan,” De Villa said.

She said that their voters education program was beyond reproach.

“But any voters education is conscience based and referenced by the Philippine Constitution, and the social doctrines, the social teachings of the Church,” she said.

“As I mentioned earlier, the PPCRV opens to all, not just members of the Catholic Church or Catholics, but also to other creeds, other denominations, including non-believers, as long as they are not pushing for anything that is contrary to the values that we promote,” she said. – With Christina Mendez, Paolo Romero