THE Dilaab Foundation Inc. said Saturday their campaign against vote-buying has produced good results in the 2013 elections, and that they will continue to improve their strategies for the 2016 presidential polls.
Dilaab Executive Director Fr. Camilo diola said they are now uniting all stakeholders to fight pressures and wrong thinking.
“Let’s work on conscience formation so voters will not sell their votes and politicians will not buy votes,” Diola said.
He said that in the 2016 presidential elections, they will come up with mechanism for conscience formation.
Mayren F. Cogtas, project assistant of Circles of Discernment for Empowerment (Cide), said that in their 2013 election evaluation, Dilaab found out that many voters ages 36 and above, who heard about Dilaab campaign, continue to sell votes.
However, they are happy that voters ages 35 and below stood their ground against vote-buying.
Diola said that most of their strategies were accepted by the voters since 2007.
In that year, Diola said they reminded the voters to refrain from electing candidates who were engaged in the illegal drug trade by coming out with the slogan: “Ayaw ipalusot and kandidatong shaburakot”.
In the 2013 election, Dilaab’s slogan was: “Tulo ka adlaw nga kalipay, tulo ka tuig nga pagmahay.”
This means that if a voter will sell his vote, he will suffer for three years (one term).
Diola said they responded to invitations for them to speak before several sectors throughout the country who want to adopt their campaign strategy. They’ve reached as far as Gumaca in Quezon, Kidapawan in Cotabato, Mati in Davao Orietnal and Bontoc Province, he said.
“In Cebu, we are very strong in our campaign against vote-buying because we are supported by Couples for Christ and the media,” Diola said.
Speaking before a Dilaab-Philippine National Police (PNP)-Media Forum, Dilaab Administrator Teresa Tejero said that in the coming 2016 elections, they must identify who the major stakeholders and minor stakeholders are.
The major stakeholders are the police to maintain peace and order and arrest vote-buyers, Commission on Elections (Comelec) personnel, treasurers of local government units, teachers who will watch over the voting process and the media who will report the conduct of the election. (EOB)