Poll watchdogs not severing ties with Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines

MANILA, Philippines - Two electoral watchdogs denied yesterday reports that they have severed ties with the social arm of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.

Henrietta de Villa, Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting chairwoman, said the PPCRV and the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel), which she also chairs, will continue to collaborate with the CBCP’s National Secretariat for Social Action-Justice and Peace (Nassa) for next year’s elections.

“The collaboration between PPCRV, Namfrel and Nassa as far as the elections is concerned will not change,” she said.

The online news organization abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak has reported that the PPCRV and Namfrel have decided to cut their ties with Nassa for the May 2010 elections, citing “internal politics among the bishops as well as that in Nassa” as the possible reason.

De Villa said the only difference now is that the collaboration would no longer pass through Nassa’s secretariat.

“I think we have to revisit the structure of Namfrel so that it would be easy to carry out the projects and activities and also avoid confusion on the ground,” she said.

“I guess that’s what he was trying to say. That there is no more a shared chairmanship but to say that we are severing our ties, that we have nothing to do with Nassa, it’s not the correct interpretation of this.”

De Villa said this might be the point of Namfrel member Damaso Magbual, who was quoted in the report.

“I guess what Mr. Magbual is saying is that unlike the setup before where there is joint chairmanship between Namfrel chair Mr. Jose Concepcion and Nassa chair Marbel Bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez, now it’s no longer like that. When they elected me as chair of Namfrel it was understood that I was the chair,” she said. – Helen Flores