Vote-buying in SK national polls?

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines  – Alleging bribery and other vote-buying tactics, the president of the city’s Sangguniang Kabataan Federation said she is boycotting the SK’s national elections and called on President Aquino to look into the anomaly.

Baguio SK Federation president Karminn Cheryl Yangot, 18, a student of the University of the Philippines Diliman and SK chairman of Barangay Baka­keng here, said, “As early as the Christmas break, a national candidate tried to bribe me with money for holiday shopping in exchange for my vote.”

Yangot alleged that a representative of the national candidate offered her and other local SK federation presidents free accommodation in a resort in the bet’s home province. 

She further alleged that she was also offered shopping allowance and that her P10,500 registration fee for the SK National Federation elections would be shouldered by the candidate.

Making things worse, Yangot said a government official allegedly even urged her – and other SK federation presidents, too – to vote for the candidate.

“I am now convinced that the election will not be clean, honest and free. There seems to be a conspiracy between this candidate and government officials to catapult him to power,” she said.

Amid these irregularities, Yangot, who sits as youth representative to the 14-member Baguio City council, said, “I refuse to participate in a process that is tainted with corruption and whose outcome will be accomplished through corruption, committed by no less than ‘the hope of the fatherland.’”

“I am not a commodity. My vote is not a commodity and has no monetary price… We are supposed to prove that the youth is still the hope of the fatherland,” she added.

Yangot said the SK should be firm in disproving the perception that the youth organization has become a breeding ground for corruption.

She said she decided to boycott the SK’s national elections “than feel disgraced for the rest of my life by my participation in the constitution of a corrupt leadership.”

“Even if I will not vote for the ‘vote-buying candidate,’ my participation in the process, knowing that it is an exercise with a pre-determined result, contributes to legitimizing it,” she added.

Yangot urged Aquino to do something “before the moral fiber of today’s youth is totally undermined and eroded.” 

“Mr. President, please help us,” she said.