In partnership with the Commission on Elections (COMELEC), campus-club organizations and the senior high school, the University of Community Engagement and Advocacy Council (UCEAC) inaugurated Blue Vote 2019 in order to establish a new breed of “informed and critical society” that exercises its right to suffrage.

With the theme, “Boto ni Juan, Para sa Bayan,” Blue Vote 2019 was inaugurated through a Know Election Better Seminar (KEBs) in Mindanao and a satellite voters’ registration participated by senior high school learners and college students last September 26 in the Xavier Hall, CCFC Building.

COMELEC Education and Information Division member Sir Joselito Gerardino and Atty. Niña Rose B. Abiquibil discussed voters’ education and gender and development orientation in the context of elections, respectively.

“We want to encourage women to run for an office… The problem for women is not winning but deciding to run,” Attorney Abiquibil said.

She emphasized that although more females than males voted in the previous elections, only a few women run for office – a male to female ratio of one to five who run for public office from barangay to presidential elections.

Dubbed as “#KEBS: Know Elections Better, Superfriends!” aims to clarify the electoral process and educate youths to be responsible and intelligent voters.

“I believe that platforms like the Blue Vote can eventually inspire the young generation to proactively engage to socio-political happenings and issues around us. I want the Blue Vote to contribute in providing a 360 change of perspective and mindset of the voting community at least for the millennials – that they’ll choose critically meaning, when they vote for senators, they should vote for policy-makers, legislators, platform and people-oriented principles, and not of party affiliation and popularity,” Student Project Head and Juniors Administrative Sec. Renz Lacorte said.

Before the forum, Davao City incoming voters including AdDU students and teachers registered in AdDU as a satellite registration center.

“The registration turn-out from Ateneo students are overwhelming. It implies that they really want to vote… Ateneans are responsive to this national call of exercising our noble right to suffrage,” Lacorte added.

He also emphasized that the Ateneans are “liberated, and they are open to learn and be aware about things.”

“I am confident that their future response will go well and positive since core advocacies of the program such as social inclusion and involvement, awareness, good governance and well-run institutions, are also advocacies of the contemporary age. These are values that most millennials hold today,” he stressed.