PROMOTING VOTER’S education was difficult enough for the Ateneo Task Force (ATF) 2010 and the Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan (SLB) during the National Elections. But voter’s education for the Barangay Elections, far smaller in scale compared to the previous one, was all the more challenging.

Joint efforts by ATF 2010 and SLB to encourage participation in the Barangay and Sanggunian ng Kabataan elections started in September this school year. However, they were met with a few set-backs along the way, eventually resulting in the discontinuation of certain activities which had been successful during the efforts for the National Elections.

The manual elections were held on October 25.

Lack of volunteers

SLB Executive Director Bro. Jomari Manzano, SJ said that the smaller scale of the elections could have been a factor in the difficulties they faced during their campaign.

“It is more difficult to promote and disseminate information [about the elections],” he said.

Manzano added that they lacked volunteers to help out in the actual voting areas.

This same problem was encountered by ATF 2010 since preparations for the elections and the voting period itself fell on the finals week and the semester break, respectively.

Non-partisan Work Committee Head Ian Agatep said that they were not able to obtain as much student assistance as they would have wanted.

ATF 2010 Co-head Ken Abante added, however, that a good thing about their efforts was that it was multi-sectoral.

“[It was] an effort coming from Sanggu, the [Council of Organizations of the Ateneo] and [the Ateneo Resident Students Association],” he said.

Localizing election efforts

Despite those challenges, SLB and ATF 2010 still managed to maximize the resources they had at hand, focusing primarily on information dissemination.

Agatep said that they tried to modify the ATF 2010 plans for the Barangay Elections.

Transition is what ATF wanted for this specific election; however, Agatep said their efforts were still propelled by the same goals, which were “to make the people aware about the elections and hopefully encourage them to vote.”

According to Abante, their efforts were a continuation of the first three phases of Sanggu’s election-related agenda which include voter’s education, voter’s registration and mobilization.

Agatep said that they focused more on getting the information out to the public.

“Our efforts for the Barangay and SK elections [are] really grounded more on promoting the event and disseminating information about it [and] tackling the five issues we feel [are] important,” he said.

The five issues include what the barangay elections are, who are eligible to vote, how to vote, what to do before voting and why vote in the first place.

Apart from ATF 2010, SLB also conducted its own information dissemination campaign.

Manzano said that they did “an aggressive campaign on voters’ education which was aired at the AM station Radio Veritas every Sunday, from 3 to 4pm.”

“We also came up with voters’ registration modules for the barangay level, which we shared with the [Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV)],” added Manzano.

The PPCRV is a non-partisan movement which pushes for clean and honest elections.

For improvement

Both SLB and ATF are in agreement that the election efforts and the election itself need improvement for future implementations.

On the other hand, Manzano said there could also be improvements in the way the government handled the elections to encourage more people to vote and participate in the next elections.

Abante added that the ATF 2010 compiled an evaluation of their activities so that the succeeding groups would benefit from it.

“For succeeding efforts of the community especially [for] the next senatorial elections, they can refer to the 42-paged transition document that we are working on,” said Abante.

“Contained there are the strengths and weaknesses of our efforts and the recommendations.”