by Santosh Digal

The prelates urge the nation to conduct an honest election. Otherwise, the population will lose faith in its rulers. The faithful are encouraged to take part in the process to give the vote credibility.

Manila (AsiaNews) – The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) released a statement calling for free and credible elections because the country “cannot afford yet another controversial electoral exercise that further aggravates social distrust [in political leaders] and hopelessness” in the population.

The statement, which came at the end of a three-day plenary assembly in Manila that saw the country’s 96 bishops discuss various pastoral and social issues, will be sent to all of the country’s more than 2,800 parishes to be read at the end of Sunday mass until the vote takes place.

What is important now, CBCP President Archbishop Angel Lagdameo stressed, is for Catholic groups to “help clean the dirt from our easily corrupted electoral process”.

This means all church organizations and institutions should be mobilized and linked with other groups working for same noble cause.

 “We hope this time there will still be the sharing of functions and coordination among them,” Archbishop Lagdameo said, adding that he hoped the faithful would be involved in everything—campaign, poll watching and vote counting—to ensure that the entire electoral exercise yields reliable poll results.

“This is an effort on the part of civilian society to help Comelec establish a peaceful and honest election because we know from past experience that it really needs help,” Mgr Lagdameo said.

The CBCP statement is similar to ones made prior to previous elections. But this time the prelates did not tell people how to vote. According to Archbishop Lagdameo, the CBCP has already issued a lot of election guidelines almost every election. Hence, for the upcoming May 14 elections, they do not want to repeat what they said before. 

Church sources told AsiaNews that “electoral fraud takes place at every election in the Philippines because of influence exerted by ‘feudal clans’ on the outcome. It is positive development that people want to counter this.”

Furthermore, “the appeal by bishops and priests to set up civic groups to keep an eye on the process is good so long as the clergy is not directly involved. The Church is one of the most credible institutions of the country and the desire to see transparent elections is appreciated by everyone, including the government.”

President Arroyo has even “given a member of her cabinet the task to liaise with the Bishops’ Conference to help in the training of poll monitors”.

• philippines
• bishops
• elections
• transparency
• honesty