The Coordinating Council for Honest, Orderly and Peaceful Election (CCHOPE) created by Gov. Erico Aumentado and headed by Provincial Local Government Operations Officer (PLGOO) Rose Mascariñas has lost its credibility, its recent activities have indicated.
Some quarters, meanwhile, would like to know if some CCHOPE members have been used in the “unwanted and unwarranted†deployment of armed units to certain areas in Bohol to serve certain political interests. The CCHOPE includes the police and military.
The lady director of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) in Bohol was herself electioneering when she allowed the Nacionalista Party (NP) candidates to distribute provincial aids in the recent orientation on automated election, according to barangay officials.
Mascariñas’ vice chairman of the CCHOPE is lawyer Eliseo Labaria, provincial head of the Commission on Elections, who was not in the orientation.
The orientation, held at Bohol Tropics days before the start of the campaign period for local candidates, was attended by the barangay captains from First and Second Districts.
While the intent of the affair would suggest what activity should take place, the giving of financial aids by NP candidates Vice Gov. Julius Caesar Herrera and Ex-Provincial Administrator Tomas Abapo, Jr. instead highlighted the event, captains said.
They said the local DILG notices said provincial aids would be given during the orientation, but there was no mention of who would distribute the financial assistance.
No captain would believe that Aumentado had no brain part of the plan to benefit the NP candidates despite his self-claim to be still a faithful Lakas-Kampi-CMD man.
Abapo declared in a press conference after the orientation that the NP would adopt Aumentado as its guest candidate.
Aumentado’s group using Catigbian Mayor Roberto Salinas and few others as fronts had abandoned Lakas by declaring support for the NP bets.
Aumentado did not appear in the gathering of the captains but Abapo, who is no longer a provincial official, instead came together with Herrera to distribute the provincial barangay aid.
Reports said the group, still using Mascariñas and the CCHOPE, would gather other barangay figures like tanods.
Well-meaning Boholanos said Mascariñas should not have allowed the CCHOPE to be used for whoever’s politicking. The council membership alone of figures held with high esteem like Bishop Leonardo Medroso should have been respected, they said.
It was the PLGOO herself who announced in the captains’ automated election orientation that they had come to the part of provincial aid distribution.
A governor’s office worker then got the microphone to introduce Herrera together with Abapo for the giving of the financial aids worth P10,000 to each captain.
Abapo, despite his being no longer officially connected with the provincial government, would then shake hands with the captains as soon as Herrera turned over the aids.
Herrera was made to deliver campaign promises to the barangay officials on the same occasion.
Board Member Concepcion Lim joined her fellow captains in that activity, but she left the venue when the NP bets distributed money aids. Captains said Lim was the one who felt ashamed for Mascariñas, Herera and Abapo.
Lim, the vice gubernatorial candidate of Lakas and runningmate of gubernatorial aspirant Rep. Edgar Chatto, attended the affair also in her official capacity as the provincial federation president of the Association of Barangay Councils (ABC).
Lim was not accorded respect even if she is the Bohol head of all barangay captains or the Liga ng mga Barangay.
Meanwhile, Mascariñas suddenly disappeared, leaving the captains whom she otherwise all called to the automated election orientation.
“We expected the DILG officer to give us any additional advices before our orientation would formally end,†one captain said.
Some captains made sarcastic remarks. They said there had been barangay requests for aids from Herrera but they had not been acted for years until this election season has come.
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