PRIMER. Blue Vote 2010 is a campaign poised to simulate the election process in preparation for next year’s decisive polls. From http://bluevote2010.blogspot.com.

Perhaps one of the most overused, oft-quoted sayings by Jose Rizal is this: Ang kabataan ang pag-asa ng bayan. Its impact may have been softened by repetition in high school classrooms, but the quote still rings true, and now it has found a home in the mouths of election awareness advocates.

This early, many institutions have been organizing projects campaigning for clean elections, and most of these activities focus on the youth bloc. This does not come as a surprise; according to a Manila Bulletin article, 80% of the 2.6 million new voters are youth, and they also comprise 54% of the total voting population.

The Ateneo front has been hard at work even before the school year started, but the campaigns—or student responses—don’t seem to be enough.

Enter ATF

Task Force 2010 began last year as an initiative by ten civil society groups led by the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), a national parish-based political and non-partisan movement under chair Henrietta de Villa. It aims to work towards clean, honest, accurate, meaningful, and peaceful elections.

To get the youth involved in their election education efforts, PPCRV signed a memorandum of agreement with the Catholic Education Association of the Philippines (CEAP), of which Ateneo is a member, and the Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations (Cocopea).

From this overall effort, the university’s Sanggunian ng mga Mag-aaral got involved to spearhead a localized counterpart called Ateneo Task Force 2010 (ATF 2010).

Associate Dean for Student Affairs Rene San Andres says that these election initiatives do not only train students to be persons for others as part of their Ateneo formation, but they also emphasize the need for better leaders.

“We need leaders…who will empower people, so we have to discern and choose our leaders well. But these leaders will not be there if you keep electing the traditional ones,” he says.

Many external and internal institutions are involved with ATF, such as Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan, the Ateneo School of Government, ADSA, and the Political Science Department.

The Council of Organizations of the Ateneo (COA) are also involved, with orgs such as The Assembly holding political science talks (politalks) and forums.

Sanggunian President Gio Tingson says that the framework of the entire ATF projects is grounded on three things: voters’ registration, voters’ education, and voters’ mobilization. (See sidebar for more details)

In other schools

While the Ateneo front is busy with Task Force 2010, student councils in other universities are also taking the lead in organizing election-related efforts.

A joint initiative by the UP Diliman Student Councils and Organizations, Botong Peyups is a 2010 elections campaign to promote voters’ registration and responsible voting. On October 13, satellite registrations were held at the UP campus for Quezon City District IV residents.

In addition to registration campaigns, UP also held several forums. The League of College Councils, composed of the twenty college student councils of UP Diliman, organized a series of symposia to collect the youth agenda encompassing issues on education, the environment, governance, and economics.

Student organizations have also invited presidential candidates for forums, and the Comelec to discuss the automated elections system.

Meanwhile, La Salle’s Committee on National Issues and Concerns, a multi-sectoral committee involving students and administration, have launched their own series of projects.

La Salle’s Student Council President Aimee Chua says the campaigns were organized into three phases: voters’ registration through satellite registration booths; voters’ education through KAMALAYAN, a series of talks on pressing national issues; and promotion of student volunteerism, such as recruiting poll watchers for election day.

UP Diliman University Student Council Chairperson Titus Tan says that these activities are a response to the need of the present situation. “For the 2010 elections, we are also moving because of a situation poised at the voting population: to maintain or to change the status quo administration.”

He added that the current campaigns are much more aggressive and effective. “The educated youth are more exposed to the social realities and know the systemic ills,” he says. “This is why we deem that registering to vote is the most minimal that one can do now.”

The students respond

Although many groups—both inside and outside Ateneo—have been hard at work organizing these initiatives, student response and involvement is another matter.

“I think the involvement now is pretty good,” says COA President Miguel Zaballero. “There’s genuine enthusiasm in the coming elections and genuine concern to make the right vote.” Tingson adds that turn-out was “okay,” although not as much, during the Sanggu’s registration efforts.

According to a study by A-Stat for The GUIDON, 71.6% of the 278 respondents answered “yes” when asked if they knew about ATF 2010.

But the difference between what they heard about ATF 2010’s projects and what they know about them were noticeable; majority have not heard about the projects, except for My Big Vote, with 59% saying they’ve heard about it. When asked if they knew what these were all about, a “no” came as the majority response for most projects.

Of the 189 registered voters surveyed, only 20 registered through ATF 2010’s hakot and satellite registrations. All of them, however, gave a satisfactory average rating for the project’s organization, time efficiency, and convenience.

Limitations

No system is perfect, and Tingson says ATF 2010 was a big movement that needed a lot of people. Zaballero adds that they found it hard to consolidate all the efforts into one big project because of the number of people involved.

Media and the Creative Arts Cluster Head Bambi Reyes says she does not know whether Ateneans do not notice the campaigns, or the campaigns were just not good enough. “There were a lot of good ideas and projects,” she says in Filipino. “It’s a shame that they aren’t noticed and that they haven’t had much response.”

San Andres says organizers can’t do everything. There is a point when it’s all up to the students. “The other thing is for the students to respond…the important thing here is for individual students to do their share in nation building,” he says.

He recounts attending the “Dare You to Vote” symposium in Leong Hall. Although the venue was packed, San Andres notes that the capacity was only 500 students—of the entire LS community’s 8,000 population. “I hope the rest [of the population] are doing their share in educating themselves and mobilizing others… in matters of nation building, we shouldn’t just be watching out for ourselves,” he says.

For Political Science Professor Carmel Abao, the limitations of such campaigns depend on what the academe can do. In addition to hearing candidates speak in organized forums, she says that there is a need for the students’ opinions to be known.

Youth politicization

Despite the many initiatives, the A-Stat study showed that student response to election-awareness programs was low. Whether this is reflective of Atenean political awareness is debatable, but Abao thinks that it is not a matter of the youth not caring at all, but rather a way of distancing themselves from dirty politics.

Tingson believes that whether extremely politicized or not, there is one base line factor among voters. “We’re awaiting the next candidate,” he says.

Tingson adds that 2010 is a chance for our generation to contribute concretely in nation building. “2010 is a [really] big factor for us [because] this is the chance for our generation to work and to really contribute to nation building concretely, by participating in [the] democratic institutions that we have.”