Catholic clergymen say polls fraud-free

More bishops and priests yesterday affirmed an earlier statement by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) that the May 10 elections were "generally clean, honest, and peaceful" as it calls for an expeditious canvassing by Congress for the winning president and vice-president.

This developed as the congressional canvassing continues to be hobbled by allegations of massive fraud by the opposition party, which CBCP has refuted with its statement.

"We appeal to the respective constitutional bodies to expedite the proclamation of winning candidates," said the four bishops who make up the dioceses of Davao. "Too much cultural dynamics in our contemporary politics and too much politics in our culture created institutional limitations that disrupted the conduct of elections." The Archdiocese of Davao is made up of three dioceses namely, Digos, Tagum, and Mati. Davao Archbishop and CBCP president Fernando Capalla earlier issued the CBCP assessment in behalf of all the other bishops.

Cagayan de Oro social action director monsignor Elmer Abacahin, on the other hand, described the elections as "peaceful but chaotic." "Comelec (Commission on Election) incompetence and its lacking of pro-active response owing to poor planning caused the chaos," he said.

Similar reports of generally peaceful elections were reported in Dipolog, Aklan, Baguio-Benguet, Zambales, Negros Occidental and Surigao.

A total of 17 other bishops earlier assessed the last elections and concluded that the was no massive cheating that change the outcome of the national elections and that incidence of violence, dagdag-bawas, vote-buying, and other cases were isolated ones. — Jose Aravilla