Friday, March 23, 2007 Parish groups told: Help keep election honest
THE Catholic Church’s Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs) in the parishes can contribute a lot to a peaceful and honest elections come May, church officials said.
In a letter, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said they believe in the capability of the BECs in organizing themselves and working with civic and religious organizations in making this year’s election credible.
For Fr. Raul Go, co-pastor of the San Nicolas parish, BECs play an important role in teaching the communities about the importance of an honest and peaceful election.
In Toledo City, for example, vote-buying in Barangay Lutopan was prevented largely because of the BEC values formation program, said Enriquieta Quijada, project coordinator of the BEC secretariat.
BECs are Christian communities working to help the faithful follow the church’s teachings.
They are supposed to help realize three of the nine major pastoral priorities of the Catholic church: active presence and participation of the poor, the family as the focal point of evangelization, and building and strengthening of participatory communities that make up the parish as “a community of communities.”
Go said that while there are BECs that are advanced, there are also some that lag behind in terms of their programs.
Advanced BECs are those that are active in implementing their own projects and are involved in larger endeavors of the church.
Some BECs, however, have limited their activities to prayer meetings and income-generating projects.
To help ensure that the May 14 elections will be honest and peaceful, Quijada said most of the BEC members in the six church districts in Cebu have volunteered to help the Cebu-Citizens’ Involvement and Maturation in People’s Empowerment and Liberation (C-Cimpel).
Bienvenido Tan Jr., a BEC district organizer, is a member of the C-Cimpel core group that goes around Cebu to conduct regular voters’ values formation seminars.
Youth groups in the parishes are also C-Cimpel volunteers.
Quijada added that for CBCP to believe in the BEC’s capability, the members should do their volunteer work honestly. (NRC)
