40% of Filipino voters ‘ignorant’ of rights

An estimated 40 percent of Filipino voters, notably those in urban areas, are either "ignorant" or unaware of their rights to vote, a church-based organization on elections said yesterday.

Antonio Ventosa, national chairman of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), said the "ignorance" or lack of awareness in voting rights are due to three factors, namely the politicians, a "defective" electoral process, and voter himself.

In an interview, Ventosa admitted however that one of the biggest factors why voters have a tendency not to elect the "right" candidates is due to their poor economic condition.

The PPCRV is currently studying the electoral process in the country.

A lot of politicians bribe voters to elect them, and the pressure to receive money in turn influences their voting decision, he said.

Ventosa said the rampant cheating every election season manifests an aspect of the "defective" electoral process.

On the other hand, the voter himself is to be blamed, he said. Because of poverty and ignorance, the voter himself decide or pretend not to be able to decide unless given bribe, Ventosa said.

These problems have prompted the PPCRV, an independent church-based lay organization, to launch three educational campaign projects to address defects in the electoral process.

In another development, Fr. James Reuter, executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines Episcopal Commission on Social Communication and Mass Media, said the country’s problem is not the population explosion, but rather the unequal distribution of resources.

Reuter delivered the message during a press conference with organizers of the Fourth World Meeting of Families.

"In the Philippines there is still plenty of space. The problem is distribution. We have too many people with very little, and too few people with too much," Reuter said at the Arzobispado de Manila in Intramuros.

Pope John Paul II is expected to return to the Philippines on the occasion of the Fourth World Meeting of Families to be held in Manila Jan. 22-26, 2003. It will be his holiness’ third visit to the country.

Reuter, who writes a column for The STAR, said "there never was a population problem. And there never was a population explosion."

"It’s a myth. Not only a myth, it’s a lie," he said.

Reuter said if you look at any scientific analysis, you could put all the people in the world in the state of Massachusetts, in the United States.

He also said that we could take everything that we use and everything that we have and it would all fit in the state of Texas.

Manila Auxiliary Bishop Socrates Villegas, for his part, said during the same press conference said that population control through the use of contraceptives never was an option for the Catholic Church.

Villegas, who is also spokesman for Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin, said the Catholic Church has always advocated "education" as a way to solve the problem not only on population, but also the scourge of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV. — Sandy Araneta