Friday, May 04, 2007 Opposition leads group's poll 'advisory list' By Danilo V. Adorador III
A "TRANSPARTISAN" group gave the local PDP Laban-Genuine Opposition (GO) slate almost a clean sweep in its "advisory" list of favored candidates for the May elections.
An administration candidate, who requested anonymity owing to his absence of party clearance to speak on the matter, immediately questioned the process governing the selection of candidates.
The advisory list issued by the Church-inspired Managsilingan Ta! Thursday entrusted the opposition all top-tier positions: mayoral, vice mayoral, and two congressional seats.
PDP Laban-Go also obtained almost all slot in the 16-seat City Council race, in a list that included only four City Council candidates from the administration PaDayon-Lakas CMD, two from the Nationalist People's Coalition (NPC), and an independent.
Bobby Ansaldo of the Managsilingan Ta! said the three Cs--conscience, competence and commitment--were used as criteria in rating the candidates.
Ansaldo explained the process: Each criterion is broken into several benchmarks, upon which the panel rated the candidates in a scale of one to five. The scores were then collated and the candidates who got the highest rating made it to advisory list.
But the question is how did the panelists rated candidates who were not known to them.
In his case, Ansaldo said he just simply left the candidate's score card blank.
When asked how many panelists were involved in the process and who they were, the convener group also declined to specify.
But Ansaldo and other Managsilingan Ta! conveners voiced confidence that despite the "imperfect" conditions involving the selection process, the manner by which the candidates were selected had been above-board and that their choices reflect the collective sentiments of the group.
A candidate of the PaDayon-Lakas CMD coalition said they already saw the writings on the wall.
"We feel early on that they are biased to the opposition. The murky process involved in the selection of those who got into their list confirmed our suspicions," said the candidate.
The administration, he said, was "not discouraged or threatened" with the overwhelming dominance of opposition candidates in the list, which the conveners said will be disseminated in all groups and churches comprising the Managsilingan Ta!
"This clearly will not translate to a command vote. It's just an endorsement--a form of guidelines if you will--and voters will ultimately decide who to vote for," he said.
Other administration candidates declined to comment on the matter.
