MEMBERS OF the Ateneo community questioned the Central Board (CB) representative candidates with regard to their unfamiliarity with the roles of the CB during the 2013 Sanggunian CB Miting de Avance held at the Escaler Hall last August 2.
The Miting de Avance is a pre-election event organized to allow candidates to present their platforms and to answer the inquiries of the student body.
After the presentation of platforms, invited panelists were given the chance to direct their questions to the candidates.
The panelists were the following: Sanggunian President Dan Remo, Sanggunian Secretary-General AJ Elicaño, The Ateneo Assembly President Harvey Chua and The GUIDON Inquiry Editor Nadine Ramos.
Ramos asked the candidates what they thought their role in the CB would be.
According to her, the candidates’ platforms, which were mostly based on information dissemination, were not in line with the tasks of the CB.
Several candidates, including Freshman CB Representative hopefuls Samantha Warren and Jared Sarmiento, proposed to use social networking sites to inform their constituents about the Sanggunian’s projects.
Warren is running to be the freshman CB representative for the School of School Sciences (SOSS) while Sarmiento is running for John Gokongwei School of Management (JGSOM) freshman CB representative.
Meanwhile, SOSS Junior CB Representative candidate Ivy Lou Flores plans to create a committee on sports development.
“That’s not what [the] CB is. It’s the Central Board. It’s for legislation, right?” Ramos asked, directing her question to candidates for SOSS.
According to Flores and independent SOSS Senior CB Representative candidate Javier Campos III, the CB’s main function is to create policies.
SOSS Sophomore CB Representative candidate Abbo Hernandez had the same sentiment.
“The role of a CB is supposed to be legislative—you create new spaces and foundations for which projects can be built upon,” he said.
According to the 2005 Sanggunian Constitution, the CB is the main governing and representative authority that formulates and executes general and specific policies, programs and projects of the student government.
Additionally, CB representatives are students elected to represent all students of their respective schools in their year levels in the CB.
Remo questions candidates
Like Ramos, Remo also pointed out the candidates’ lack of familiarity with the function of a CB representative.
He asked the candidates how they plan to address the problems they see with regard to the current Sanggunian.
“Your work [as CB] primarily [concerns] policy work, and if you are going to tell me, and you’re going to berate us, that there’s something wrong with Sanggu, I need to know what specific policy is wrong, why is it wrong and how do you change it?” said Remo.
JGSOM Freshman CB Representative candidate Lorenzo Espacio believes that elected Sanggunian officials should be more open to their constituents.
Meanwhile, Joahnna Esquivias, a sophomore SOSS CB representative candidate, believes that there is no problem with the Sanggunian’s policies.
“[I] think it just lacks enforcement,” she said.
Hernandez added, “It’s not about the policies that are wrong. It’s more about the policies that haven’t been enacted yet.”
The CB candidates
Most CB candidate are running under one of the political formations: the Alliance of Student Leaders (ASL), the Christian Union for Socialist and Democratic Advancement (Crusada) and the Movement for Ignatian Initiative and Transformative Empowerment (Ignite).
Running for the School of Humanities are the following: Rocyl Sangalang (Ignite) for freshman CB representative, Nina Atienza (Ignite) for sophomore CB representative and Michael Del Mundo (Ignite) for senior CB representative.
For JGSOM, Espacio (ASL), Sarmiento (Ignite) and Matthew San Pedro (Crusada) are running for freshman CB representative.
Lone Freshman CB Representative candidate Camille Diez (ASL) is running for the School of Science and Engineering.
Meanwhile, the candidates for SOSS are the following: Warren (Ignite) and Antonio Punzalan (ASL) for freshman CB representative, Esquivias (Ignite) and Hernandez (Crusada) for sophomore CB representative, Flores (Ignite) for junior CB representative, and Campos (independent) for senior CB representative.
The 2013 Sanggunian Freshmen and Special Elections will be held from August 5 to 8.
Voting polls will be stationed in the following areas: Gonzaga Hall, SEC-A, Faura Hall, Matteo Ricci Study Hall, and the CTC-SOM areas.
According to the Ateneo Commission on Elections, results will be released on August 10 at 6:00 PM via their Facebook page.
Updated 8:30 PM, August 3, 2013
