Crime watch volunteers cited for peaceful polls

MANILA, Philippines – The Citizens Crime Watch cited yesterday its more than 300,000 volunteers all over the country who risked their lives in helping to keep last week’s elections peaceful and orderly.

CCW chairman Jose Malvar Villegas Jr., in a statement, said the CCW-Balikatan One Vote Movement Bantay Halalan 2010 significantly contributed to an honest, first-ever computerized elections on May 10. The CCW Bantay Halalan 2010 is an accredited citizens’ arm of the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

Villegas said CCW volunteers guarded polling centers, provided legal services, and assist voters throughout the election day. To date, his group is still monitoring electoral frauds and election-related violence.

“We will continue our campaign to fight corruption as we vow to prosecute those guilty of election offenses,” he said.

CCW secretary general Carlo Batalla said before the elections, his group also signed a memorandum of agreement with the Comelec’s legal department, headed by lawyer Ferdinand Rafanan, to promote its Elect Voice Program which aimed to enlighten voters on computerization program, election code, prevention of cheating and vote-buying, right of suffrage and good governance.

Batalla said the CCW was able to conduct seminars on election matters in schools and universities in Metro Manila and other sectors of society in two months.

Moreover, One Voice Movement lawyer Ariel Joseph Arias, president of the UE law center was commanded for “well-coordinated” operations of CCW during the elections day.

The CCW has received several citations and awards as the biggest anti-crime organization in the country, having existed for the last 18 years. It is currently helping families of victims of the Maguindanao massacre by providing legal assistance and speeding up the prosecution of all the suspects.