BY MIKHA FLORES
A social experiment in a town in Abra province aiming to educate and empower voters and track the causes of election violence and vote-buying has hit a brick wall. Local leaders, whose participation is crucial to the success of the project, have rejected it.The project called ‘Restoring Electoral Integrity in Abra in 2013: A Social Experiment,’ is supposed to be piloted in Peñarrubia in Abra, but the experiment has rubbed the town officials the wrong way.
The Sangguniang Bayan of Peñarrubia has argued that it “would bring unwanted negative attention” to the town.
Town Mayor Geraldine Balbuena also questions the choice of Peñarrubia as the venue for the experiment considering, she says, that there are municipalities with worse records in terms of violence. The provincial capital of Bangued, for one, is more notorious when it comes to killings, she points out.
“Why did they choose our town (to pilot a project to restore integrity) when it doesn’t have the worst reputation,) she asked in the vernacular during a phone interview.