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Center trains church-based poll watchers in island of Chocolate
Hills
(Tagbilaran,
CenPEG News) - Dubbed as one of the country’s tourist destinations,
Tagbilaran City on the island province of Bohol, central Visayas
was the venue for a three-day national training on voters’
education and the automated election last February 19-21.
Nearly
a hundred election volunteers and priests coming from various Catholic
dioceses across the country attended the training organized by the
National Secretariat for Social Action (Nassa), which is under the
Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).
Fellows
and research associates from the Center for People Empowerment in
Governance (CenPEG) served as resource persons for modules on political
education, the automated election system (AES), poll watching, and
Geographic Information System (GIS). CenPEG Executive Director,
Ms. Evi-ta Jimenez, introduced the policy center’s various
programs with educators from the University of the Philippines (UP)
– Profs. Bobby Tuazon, Rosa Castillo, and Trina Listanco –
discussing the particular modules.
Other
resource persons came from Namfrel, Lente, and the Parish Pastoral
Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV). Namfrel’s chair and
former Central Bank governor, Jose Cuisia, spoke about critical
issues related to the poll automation.
GIS
for the automated elections is part of CenPEG’s ongoing comprehensive
study of the poll automation system. It generates data on the road
and sea networks, power lines, and telecommunications transmission
system throughout the country which are crucial to the success –
or failure – of the May 10 automated elections.
GIS
was part of Comelec’s early preparations for the automated
election and should have been done in 2006. No such study has been
made so far. CenPEG News |
