THE campaign against the perennial vote-buying is gaining traction as the religious and faith-based groups are prepared to bring those candidates and voters found to be engaging in using money to sway votes in campaigning in court, if needed.
“Atong kasohan ug ipapriso ang mamalit ug boto nga politiko karong election. Gikan sa Mayor ngadto na sa tanang kagawad sa lungsod,” he said. (We’ll sue those mayors down to the councilors engaged in vote buying and put them behind bars).
In his fb post, Fr. Darwin Gitgano, who is said he’s assigned in Valencia town, said that the move against vote-selling and vote-buying is now ready with the legal advisers and “secret agents” to start the change the election course.
Every election, most of the candidates are gathered to pledge a clean, honest and safe polls, including a no to vote-buying, by affixing their respective signatures on a tarp spelling out the vow/covenant. But most of the election times, this vowed are literally and figuratively broken.
It will be recalled that former Maribojoc Mayor Leoncio Evasco, Jr., then candidate for governor in 2019 polls, did show up in the signing of the vow/covenant inside the St. Joseph Cathedral church in Tagbilaran City.
The following is the statement of the group: A perennial problem hounding Valencia, and all the Philippines, is vote buying. The illegal and immoral buying of votes has unfortunately been institutionalized, and even mandatory, to win during the elections. This vote buying then inevitably leads to unfettered corruption of public funds, such that, according to Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, more or less 50% of a project’s funds are pocketed by wicked politicians and their cohorts.
As Parish Vicar of Sto. Nino Parish and Assistant Head of the St. Michael the Archangel Ministry of Healing, Deliverance and Exorcism, both in Valencia, Bohol, one of my sacred tasks is to impart a moral conscience to all my parishioners, centered on the word of God. It is therefore my moral and imperative duty to educate my parishioners, the Valencianhons, of the evils of vote buying, for them to stop selling their votes and to report to the authorities those buying their votes.
In line with this, I have talked to almost all candidates of the 2025 Midterm Elections of Valencia, Bohol, to tell them of this mission and to exhort them to stop vote buying, lest I will sue them personally for violation of Article 261 (a) of the Omnibus Election Code, defining the criminal offense of vote buying, and Disqualification from holding office under Section 68 of the same Code.
We already have a list of a hundred like minded parishioners who volunteered to monitor the presence of vote buying and selling in their respective barangays and committed to signing affidavits as witnesses, to support any complaint to be filed. We also have at least three lawyers who have volunteered their services in the drafting of complaints. Other volunteers, including more lawyers and paralegals, are very much welcome to join this cause.
We will also coordinate with the Comelec, DILG, DepEd, and the PNP, as members of the Kontrabigay Committee under Comelec Resolution No. 10946, for any assistance that we both can give to each other to stop the scourge of vote buying. (rvo)
