SOME 937 candidates for barangay election and another 539 candidates for Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) polls attended a mass for peace and signed a peace covenant at the Dagupan City Cathedral on Friday before they started their campaign spree.

The twin activities coincided with the start of the campaign period for the Barangay and SK elections last Friday.

The mass started at 7:30 a.m. and the signing of covenant took place immediately thereafter in the presence of City Election Officer Remarque Ravanzo, Supt. Dionicio Borromeo, city police chief; representatives of Archbishop Oscar Cruz, members of the Parish Pastoral Council for Pastoral Voting and local media.

City Election Officer Ravanzo said attendance of the candidates to the twin activities was significant since it was a manifestation that they all want peace to rein in the October 29 Barangay and SK elections

The twin activities were initiated by Ravanzo, Borromeo, Local Government Operations Officer Expedita Callanta and other officials to ensure peaceful and honest election in the city.

 Of the 31 incumbent barangay chairmen in the city, only two are running unopposed, namely Barangay Chairmen Lino Fernandez of Lucao and Delfin de Guzman of Salapingao.

“This is also a reaffirmation of the peace and order condition in the city in the coming polls since Dagupan is generally peaceful with no incident of political violence noted in the past whatsoever,” Ravanzo said.

Ravanzo said although Dagupan City is peaceful and orderly, there was a report that the barangay chairman of Pugaro, Ador Bangcod, had received death threats from still unidentified persons.

“Although we still have to receive a written complaint from Barangay Captain Bangcod, we already acted on his request to beef up the number of policemen in the barangay,” he said.

He also said they are keenly monitoring the situation in Pugaro and intend to send a team from the Regional Mobile Group there on the day of the election to make sure that place would be peaceful and that electorate will vote according to their free will.

 Corollary to this, former Councilor Alex de Venecia, who attended the mass for peace, called for and honest, orderly and peacefully election that is devoid of vote buying, material gift-giving, illegal posting, threat and intimidation.

De Venecia represented the non-profit organization “Advocacy for Community Lives Improvement” in that forum.

Most of the ballot boxes to be used during the elections have already arrived and more are expected in the next few days. LM

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