On the Ground: The Patriotism of PPCRV Volunteers

Jennissa Piso, PPCRV secretary from the Sacred Heart Parish in Caybiga, Caloocan, marks the 2022 elections as the most stressful referendum she has ever experienced since she started volunteering. The failures of vote-counting machines, manual voting as a resolution to the aforementioned issue, the proliferation of sample ballots at several voting centres with shaded names of candidates, voters whose names could not be found in any of their lists, voters comparing ballots inside polling precincts, and voters taking photos of their ballots and receipts (which are electoral offences), are just some of the challenges she mentioned their team has faced.

“The poll watchers act on every issue raised, and the focal persons immediately go to clustered precincts to help resolve the issue,” says Piso, explaining how they handled the challenges on election day. “The PPCRV maximised social media communication so that all the needs and issues raised were addressed immediately,” she adds. For some reason, Piso’s team didn’t use the digital system made by PPCRV called VASK. Supposedly, it could smoothen and quicken their process of finding polling precincts for voters. Instead, they resorted to COMELEC’s Precinct Finder and the old-fashioned searching of names on PDFs and Word documents.

Read more: 2022 Elections: PPCRV Chair Myla Villanueva Talks About Preparations and Tech-Forward Solutions

Despite these challenges, the volunteers have exhibited patience, working with grace under pressure and perseverance. “This year’s election is one of the most crucial parts in our country’s history [today],” reflects John Oliver Ramos, assistant secretary of the Parish Pastoral Council (PPC) of Mother of the Redeemer Parish in Deparo, Caloocan and also a PPCRV volunteer. As in some other voting centres around Metro Manila, Ramos and his team waited for a VCM replacement from Laguna up to the dawn of May 10, which unfortunately never arrived. “Being part of the PPCRV is a big challenge for us in safeguarding the honesty of this election. It is a fulfilling duty to serve God and His land,” he shares.

This solid faith in God and His people was one of the key factors that drove these volunteers to go beyond their comfort zones and exceed what was only mandated from them in 2022. “God gave us the free will to choose. The presence of the Church inside the voting precinct is not about the candidates they are supporting, but it ensures the sanctity of free will,” Ramos says. “The Church is the voice of truth and of moral standards.”

Although under the jurisdiction of the Philippine Catholic Church, the PPCRV remains a non-partisan body of volunteers who assist the voters, guide them in their polling precincts, and make parallel counts of election returns to check COMELEC’s quick count from the transparency server. However, the Catholic Church in the Philippines has been mocked in the past for leaning towards particular candidates or being outspoken on civil, social, and political issues of the country.

“The Church has always been on the people’s side,” says Piso. “The Church’s role is very crucial in exercising checks and balances on our country’s democratic process. It represents the people’s fight for good governance through servant leadership, like how Jesus leads the world through His teachings. That is why the Church has always been the best partner in ensuring honest and clean elections.”

Read also: EDSA Revolution: A Look Back at the Historic 1986 People Power

Apart from faith, PPCRV volunteers consistently show their love for the country through this endeavour—not only because they volunteer during elections but also by exhibiting the good moral values of a true Filipino.

Some volunteers assisted older people and persons with disabilities in casting their votes, some patiently explained the necessary process and routes to fellow citizens, and others held the fort in polling precincts to check members of the election board and poll watchers from party lists for any anomalies. Some guarded boxes of sealed envelopes of election returns, protecting them with their lives. Despite their political stances, they leave these aside to help all fellow Filipinos who seek their assistance.

“Being part of this year’s elections as a voter and as a PPCRV volunteer is both exciting and pressuring,” says Mark Ezekiel Apigo, PPCRV coordinator of St John Paul II Parish. “It is because this is the most significant election so far in our generation that could make or break our country’s future.”

Apigo further reports that the major challenge he faced in the two voting centres he supervised is the ignorance of the assigned electoral board, as they were supposedly not informed of the COMELEC’s general instruction to let PPCRV volunteers receive the fourth copy of election returns. Apparently, the heads of the electoral board did not know that the PPCRV is tasked to manually encode and audit these fourth copies to make a parallel count of COMELEC’s automated results.

“I was thinking, what have we missed in preparing for these elections? Why have these technicalities been ignored by other parties responsible?” Apigo shares. “I think, the Church stands for the truth, for the overall wellness of the people, for fairness, and for everyone to thrive in living.”

“Every election, we always render our time to participate in PPCRV’s endeavours—all are willing to volunteer with nothing in return,” says Eunice Ellarma, PPCRV coordinator of San Antonio Maria Claret Parish in Diliman, Quezon City. “Our task is not only to safeguard the ballots but also to protect every voter in their right to choose candidates they are rooting for, in a peaceful and orderly fashion. The Church is a reputable institution that helps in upholding this right for the common good.”

Read also: Colour in PH Politics: What are You Wearing on Halalan 2022?

As of 6pm on May 10, the transmission of VCMs to COMELEC’s transparency server has reached 98.03 per cent. Results of this partial and unofficial count state that Ferdinand Marcos Jnr and Sara Duterte-Carpio have made landslide wins in the presidential and vice-presidential posts, with 31,021,353 and 31,466,425 votes respectively. Meanwhile, the command centre of PPCRV, in partnership with the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP), has only officially begun its manual auditing of election returns past 2pm of the same day, and would later issue a parallel count that will be matched against COMELEC’s results.

Volunteers have camped at the command centre since election day and patiently waited for batches of election returns to arrive. While waiting, results from COMELEC’s transparency server began to be broadcasted by media and the command centre at around 9pm. As expected, PPCRV volunteers on the ground finished sealing election returns beyond the designated time due to the challenges riddling this year’s elections, as previously outlined. The first batch to arrive was brought by the team from the Archdiocesan Shrine of Our Lady of Loreto assigned at Claro M Recto High School.

They were soon followed by a few batches of PPCRV volunteers who finished their election returns nearing the dawn of May 10. Hannah Marie Banzuelo from San Isidro Labrador Parish in Tandang Sora, Quezon City and her fellow teammates were among them.

“As a PPCRV volunteer, I have mixed emotions because we’ve seen the results being broadcasted while we were still continuing our operations beyond closing time,” she shares. “It’s difficult to be calm and we should be careful in our actions during election day because of the large number of people who came to vote. I wouldn’t deny that being at the voter’s assistance desk, escorting the ballots at the emergency accessible polling places (EAPP), and staying vigilant as poll watchers are all exhausting. But we all did this for us to have a clean, honest, accurate, meaningful, and safe election.”

These incredible stories from a handful of PPCRV volunteers may not account for the entire cohort of 500,000 or more. Some may have more powerful stories to tell. But together, they solidify the youth’s power in every election. From sincerely serving the country to having the largest voice in the population of voters, the Filipino youth is indeed a force to reckon with.

Supporters of Marcos and Duterte have been rejoicing over social media due to the clear win of their bets. However, the Filipino youth clamour for concrete explanations from COMELEC by rallying in the streets of Metro Manila and the cities of Angeles and Tarlac, among others, on the day following the elections. Furthermore, PPCRV volunteers have signed up to participate in the manual encoding and auditing of election returns. Those who have volunteered in the precincts do not wish to let their efforts be in vain. For them, their mission does not end in handing over the election returns but in having democracy, truth, and justice truly prevail.

Read also: Nobel Peace Prize Winner Maria Ressa on Responsible Journalism, Democracy, Purpose, and Social Media

“I personally feel that this election contradicts the idea of trust, honesty, and justice,” Apigo says dishearteningly. “In a sense, we’re not just fighting for a certain candidate. I think the elections having a lay servant of the Church is a fight for truth and justice to prevail. If disinformation wins, as well as manipulation of people, the old rotten ‘padrino’ system, the teachings of the Church fails.”

These exhibitions of volunteerism, patriotism, faithfulness, servant-leadership, activism, and pursuance of truth signify hope in today’s generation of Filipinos. High hopes for the future remain to spark in the hearts of these young people—one that will light up the dark.

NOW READ

The “Women of Impact” 2022 List: Filipinas Who Have Made Their Mark

Tatlergrams: Tatler Friends Share Their Best Snaps on Election Day

Philippines in the Hands of Mothers: Does the Country Need More Female Leaders?