Vote Pilipinas launches candidate profile dashboard

Profiles of presidential candidates will be posted in the Comelec’s Vote Pilipinas dashboard. INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines — Vote Pilipinas, the official voter information campaign partner of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), on Monday launched its candidate profile dashboard which aims to give voters information about those running for office in the May 9, 2022 polls.

The dashboard, which currently has information about presidential and vice-presidential candidates, can be accessed on their website.

“This is in support of making sure that we combat fake news and disinformation. We just want to make sure that Filipino voters have access to verified and comprehensive information about those running for office,” Vote Pilipinas founder Ces Rondario said in a press briefing.

The dashboard provides the candidates’ platforms and policies, campaign details, and major advocacies among the information available.

It also gives information on actions, proceedings, and cases being filed by the candidates.

“We don’t just present to you their platforms per se, we look back at their track record and we see if there’s been anything from their previous activities that can support their platforms so that we know where they’re coming from as far as presenting these platform promises to everybody,” Rondario said.

Vote Pilipinas is eyeing the launch of profile of senatorial candidates and later on the party-list groups later in March.

It is also looking to launch this week a tracker on the stances of candidates on certain issues.

Rondario said they are also endeavoring to get the candidates’ feedback on their profile, whether there is information that needs to be updated or changed because so far, Vote Pilipinas is basing the information on their own research.

For its part, the Comelec said the move to compile and collate candidates’ information is “absolutely necessary” for voters to have access to this kind of information, especially with an ongoing pandemic.

“As we all know, we are under the pressure of the pandemic, and the pandemic has made it very difficult for the candidates to reach out to the voters, just as it is now difficult for the voters to access information about the candidates,” Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said in the press briefing.

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