Youth council bets also court religious bloc

By Inquirer CABANATUAN CITY--The practice of courting the endorsement of the Iglesia ni Cristo, a religious organization known to practice bloc voting, is not the exclusive domain of candidates for national and local government positions. In the run up to the Oct. 29 synchronized barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections, some candidates for SK positions have started seeking the endorsement of local INC ministers to push their candidacies. Early start A candidate for SK chair in a northern Nueva Ecija city said she went to the office of the local INC minister to seek his help in her candidacy. She said her father, who knows the minister, accompanied her and together they asked for an endorsement of her candidacy to the young members of the group. The minister, she said, was non-committal and said he would study her request. The candidate, a senior high school student who declined to be identified to avoid accusations of early campaigning, said she knew that other candidates in their village, both for the SK and barangay council elections, have already approached the minister to seek his endorsement. Influence "I was told that the members of INC deliver solid votes. That was the reason why we approached the minister. His endorsement will be a big help for me since there are many members of his group in our village," the candidate said. In Isabela, the police have tightened security preparations for the barangay and SK elections in at least 199 villages where communist rebels are known to be operating. Senior Supt. Dominador Aquino Jr., Isabela police director, said he has ordered an intensified monitoring of these villages to stop any violent incident in the run up to the elections. "We have to work on this matter because the police have been [one of the] primary forces against communist rebels," he said. Aquino said the villages they are watching are in the towns of Benito Soliven, Echague, Jones, San Mariano and San Agustin. Anselmo Roque, Inquirer Central Luzon, and Villamor Visaya Jr., Inquirer Northern Luzon