Task Force 2010

I just attended a meeting with my friends and they invited us to join the Task Force 2010. I didn't know about it until they explained. This is a wonderful cause. My husband and I decided to join. I will post more articles in the next few weeks regarding this matter. I hope next time I can invite you all as well. For more information, log on to http://www.tf2010.slb.ph/

This is an article on task force 2010...

TASK FORCE 2010 STATEMENT

“Responding to the Challenge of Strengthening Democracy and Restoring Trust in our Electoral Process “

December 9, 2008

The conduct of elections in our country has long been severely deplorable. The low level of public confidence in our government institutions, processes and leaders is indeed something very disturbing. Our electoral engagement has been a bitter-sweet story. On the one hand, we can see how people would join hands and clamor for genuine change and do whatever it takes to defend and protect the sanctity of the ballot. We see men and women from all walks of life, working hard for a clean and honest election even to the point of death. Yet on the other hand, the same old evils of fraud, coercion, violence, cheating, and rigging continue to persist in our entire electoral exercise.

Given the climate of hopelessness and the tendency of people to avert from political participation to exercise and assert their rights, guard the electoral process and to push for the needed electoral reforms, the prime challenge is how to (1) restore credibility both to our electoral process and the COMELEC, as a core democratic institution for resolving political conflicts and issues, and (2) how to get the citizens, particularly the youth, to be politically involved.

There is also a great need to underscore the sanctity of the right of suffrage as the centerpiece of our democracy – that we, Filipinos, ought to value our right to vote and we pro-actively rebuild and defend our electoral process. Amidst the current political tumult, there is a glaring need to emphasize institutional-structural reforms in order to bring back the trust of the people in electoral and democratic exercises.

With barely a year from the next scheduled national and local elections in 2010, there is again a looming danger to democracy – a threat to cancel, postpone or change the nature of the 2010 national elections. Today we issue this united warning that we will vigorously resist any attempt to do so. Because the political crisis facing the country is deeply linked to unresolved questions of electoral cheating, it is crucial that the next presidential election proceeds as scheduled and be seen as credible and meaningful by our people. It is greatly unfortunate that in the present context, charter change (cha-cha) which could truly be a genuine instrument of long-term institutional reform, is viewed with deep suspicion and is seen as endangering democracy itself.

We, the members of Task Force 2010 will not stand idly by while the general welfare is sacrificed and our political institutions, including popular sovereignty through regular elections are thoroughly undermined. We firmly believe that Congress and our political leaders should focus on more urgent concerns like electoral reforms rather than self-serving so-called “systemic changes.”

As a network, Task Force 2010, we have decided to unite together in the spirit of EDSA and push for genuine electoral reforms. Anchored on the fundamental tenet that the people are sovereign, Task Force 2010 hopes to mobilize each and every Filipino who loves this country to register and vote, in order to proactively partake in safeguarding our democracy. Along this line, TF2010 is determined to pursue and ensure the following electoral reform agenda:

• Support and push for the general registration of voters, the Cleansing of the List of Registered Voters, and the massive mobilization for electoral participation of the vulnerable sectors namely: the youth, the elderly, differently-abled, detainees, indigenous peoples, internally displaced persons, and the overseas Filipino workers
• Enhancement of Voters Education & Information Campaign on Registration
• Strengthen ties with other networks and election stakeholders
• The full implementation of RA 8436 as amended by RA 9369 or the automated election systems project

Given the membership and networks of the Task Force 2010 member-institutions, in collaboration with the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) who, under its present leadership, are determined to address the reform gaps in our electoral exercise; we hope to reach out, mobilize and harness the full potential of the more than 27 million Filipino Youth and other vulnerable sectors to proactively engage in the following arenas of change:

• Ensure full registration and voting of the Filipinos
• Actively participate in the cleansing of the voters’ list
• Partake in massive and sustained voters’ education especially focused on registration
• Organize and participate in the monitoring of election violators

We pray that this will be the beginning of effectively restoring the public’s trust in our electoral process and the institutions entrusted to protect and enforce our sovereign will. Together with the Commission on Human Rights’ rights-based approached to electoral reform, let us all join hands and be critically engaged while remaining prayerfully vigilant and discerning in taking on courses of action to redeem the highly degraded integrity of our electoral process and to effect change toward genuine democracy in the country.