PPCRV: the Catholic Church in politics
By Artemio V. Panganiban, Inquirer
12 March 2007


Honest, orderly and peaceful elections. The Supreme Court is often referred to as the last bulwark of democracy; but the first bastion is honest, orderly and peaceful elections. Like the judiciary, the Commission on Elections is constitutionally independent and granted with more than sufficient powers and functions to conduct credible elections.

In this heroic effort, the Comelec is luckily being assisted by its reinvigorated citizens' arm, the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), led by its vision-driven president, Ambassador Henrietta T. de Villa. The PPCRV is a national, parish-based, political but nonpartisan, lay organization actively supported by the Catholic hierarchy.

During its three-day National Conference on March 9 to 11, to which I had been invited as keynote speaker, PPCRV animated its diocesan leaders with "Faith and Fire," so they could fulfill its missions of voter education, and poll watching.

Voter education. To make the electorate more aware of and knowledgeable on social and political issues, the PPCRV conducts year-round voter education in all parishes nationwide. It organized the Pinoy Voters Academy and crafted three modules derived from popular TV programs: (1) Pilipinas, Nag-Grow Ka Na Ba? (2) Kababayan, Laban o Bawi? and (3) Halalan Idol.

The first module analyzes the country's current political and economic situation. The second imparts the social teachings and political apostolate of the Church. The third explains the qualifications that voters should look for in candidates. Recently, the Inquirer published the PPCRV's "Ten Commandments for Responsible Candidacy" and "Ten Commandments for Responsible Voting."

Poll watching. The PPCRV's best-known activity is poll watching. It is unleashing 620,000 poll watchers to monitor the 310,000 precincts all over the country. To recruit its huge army, it is tapping about 250 volunteers from each of the 2,700 parishes nationwide. Additionally, the PPCRV is fielding SWAT (Social Witnesses Attesting Truth) teams to oversee specific areas of concern, such as communications, logistics, documentation and roving patrols.

It plans to ask its volunteers to secure, after the counting of votes in each polling precinct, a Certificate of Votes (COVs) duly authenticated by the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI). They shall submit the COVs to the PPCRV Voters Assistance Desk (VAD) in every polling center.

The parish coordinators shall gather all the COVs from the VADs and forward them to the Arch/Diocesan Counting Centers for encoding, encryption and transmittal through its special Internet system to the PPCRV national office. The transmitted results shall then be consolidated and published in wide screens at the PPCRV National Operations Center and in its special, secure website (ppcrv.org), as well as in the media outlets of the Catholic Church.

Indeed, by helping the Comelec conduct clean elections, the PPCRV may yet be our democracy's hope and champ in searching for visionary and exemplary leaders.