Gibo tops mock polls during youth forum

CEBU, Philippines - Lakas Kampi-CMD presidential bet Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro topped a mock election garnering 69 votes from 140 youths, during a forum for the youth at the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. Eduardo Aboitiz Development Studies Center yesterday.

The RAFI held a forum entitled “Beyond the Campaign Jingle: Understanding Young Citizen’s Choices for 2010”.   The mock election was held as part of the program.

The RAFI designed the forum to provide a tool for the deliberate study and consideration of presidential and vice presidential candidates for the May 2010 election beyond campaign jingle, advertisements and intrigues. 

The scholars of Young Minds Academy, a youth leadership and citizenship development program of RAFI, were the presenters of the program and gave the profile, accomplishments, platforms and other relevant information of their assigned candidate.

According to the Evelyn Castro, RAFI-EADSC executive director, the forum was intended to promote the proper selection of candidate.

“Our objective was really to instill the discipline of the research, to build their competence at the same time engage them in what was going in the country,” Castro said.

Janelle Moran, a 16-year-old student of the Colegio de la Inmaculada Concepcion, said that she used to look at the commercials, and videos from the Internet and networking sites of the top three candidates in the survey, but through the research they did for the forum, her eyes were opened to the credentials of the candidates.

Although she is not eligible to vote this election, Moran said that she would choose Teodoro as her president.

“I started being awed by Gibo’ vision and even it became stronger when I dug deeper into his platforms when we did the research, they were the visions I wanted for the country,” she said.

Meanwhile, President Gloria Arroyo said she was happy with the support Cebuanos showed for Teodoro.

Arroyo personally called up Governor Gwen Garcia during her meeting with beach resort owners and different sectors about the issues concerning Malapascua Island in Daanbantayan.

After more than 15 minutes on the phone, Garcia told reporters that she reported to Arroyo the results of the two-day campaign of Teodoro in Cebu.

“I reported to her how huge we and successful and very, very inspiring the two-day sorties was here in Cebu swinging to the sixth district and touching base really with the grassroots with the Cebuanos,” Garcia said.

Garcia, founder and president of One Cebu Party, endorsed Gibo as their presidential candidate.

Last week at the Marco Polo Plaza, governors from all over the country also reiterated their unwavering support for Teodoro.   (FREEMAN NEWS)