Namfrel Misor calls for volunteers

By CONG B. CORRALES,
Associate Editor

THE OLDEST citizen-led electoral watchdog in the country’s call for volunteers and recruits is now in overdrive, even as its coordinator here admitts they have no clear-cut protocols in weeding out partisan or ‘sleeper’ recruits in its fold.

In an interview with Gold Star Daily, Nestor Banuag, Jr., National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) said as of presstime they are 400 volunteers short of their target of 500 volunteers for Misamis Oriental.

“We need more volunteers for the May 9 elections because as the pioneer electoral organization we need to strengthen our monitoring capacity and to be able to do that we will need a lot of volunteers,” said Banuag.

Namfrel is the pioneer in election monitoring. It started with the establishment of the operations registration committee in 1957. In the 60’s and early 70’s, the Citizens National Electoral Assembly (CNEA) was organized by then Comelec chairman Jaime Ferrer with bishop Mariano Gaviola as chairman together with Jose Concepcion, Jr. of Namfrel and Charito Planas as secretary general.

Although Banuag said infiltration of partisan volunteers in their organization has been “isolated cases” at most, he admitted they still do not have measures in place to weed out partisan volunteers that may disrupt their monitoring and taint the organization’s credibility.

In their experience, Banuag said the rigorous trainings they give to their  volunteers have been enough in weeding out the “serious” volunteers from volunteers with partisan agenda in mind.

“Usually, dili makalahutay sa series of trainings ang mga partisan volunteers,” Banuag said.