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COTABATO CITY (MindaNews/09 May) — The Citizens Coalition for ARMM Electoral Reforms (Citizens CARE), an election monitoring group accredited by the Comelec as citizens’ arm during the nationwide automated polls, gathered at a hotel here Saturday for a final briefing of their volunteers and partner-organizations on Monday’s monitoring.
Citizens CARE has at least 6,000 poll volunteers to monitor the conduct of Monday’s automated elections in the ARMM.
Citizens CARE chair Salic Ibrahim said the final briefing, attended by at least a hundred participants, including police and Army officers from the ARMM, was aimed at ensuring the monitoring of the electoral process with an end view of promoting honest, orderly, and peaceful elections.
The coalition serves as the lead convener of the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC), a coordinative body composed of partner NGOs, peoples organizations, and the civil society groups, including the Legal Network for Truthful Elections; Notre Dame Educationnal Association; National Ulama Conference of the Philippines; National Movement for Free Elections; Consortium of Bangsamoro Civil Society; and Federation of Mindanawan Bangsamoro Women Multi-Purpose Cooperative.
Citizens CARE is the lead implementing agency of the SEPVEEM (Strengthening of Electoral Process through Voters Education and Election Monitoring) Phase 3 project, which is being funded by the United States Agency for International Development with technical assistance from the International Foundation for Electoral Systems. (Malu Cadelina-Manar/MindaNews)