Kudos to People Standing Up for the Right Thing To Do

In extraordinary times few people have the courage to stand up and be counted, at times risk being on the target sight, in order to standby what is true, good, and right in their place of work, in their community, and simply where they are at the moment when hard choices had to be made. But I few did stood up, and they deserved to be recognized for Courage Under Fire and for Discernment of the Truth and the Right Thing to do in the place where they work and serve.

Father Renato Cuadras, Catholic Parish Priest of Iloilo 

Where many priests around the country remained less active in finding ways to effectively combat vote-buying, Farther Cuadras found a creative way at reinforcing disgust towards vote-buying and campaigning against it in every home in his parish. Through the parish pastoral council, he had church workers and volunteers go around the parish to place a short-sized letter envelop with a "red X" printed on it, together with the words, "Not For Sale," and posted on the residents' gate. (Read the report)

Jose Armando R. Melo, Chairman of Comelec

Former Supreme Court justice and now Comelec chairman, Melo remained impartial and dissenting against the decision of the Comelec en banc to recognize the Nationalista Party (NP)-National Peoples' Coalition (NPC) as the dominant minority party for the 2010 National Elections, which the Supreme Court (SC) has rejected on 6 May 2010 on the basis that the so-called "coalition" was bogus, not having approved by NPC itself (NPC had not been consulted about it nor agreed for such a coalition) and its filing came on late (pettition was filed on 12 February 2010 and Comelec's own deadline was 17 August 2009). On 7 May 2010, Liberal Party senatorial candidate Franklin Drilon, in his Facebook account, stated: "We welcome the decision of The Supreme Court rejecting the bogus NP-NPC coalition. In so many words, the SC criticized the Comelec's reasoning as “patently unreasonable, made as it was without basis in law, in fact or in reason.” Chairman Melo and Commissioner Sarmiento had shared our position on this issue,... but were eventually outvoted by their peers. We acknowledge their wisdom and impartiality."

Rene Sarmiento, Commissioner of Comelec

Sarmiento, together with Comelec Chairman Jose Melo, dissented the decision of the Comelec en banc that accredited the bogus NP-NPC coalition as the dominant minorit party, which on 6 May 2010 the Supreme Court nullified and the Comelec en banc had "acted in excess of its jurisdiction when it granted the registration of NP-NPC as a coalition beyond teh deadline the Comelec itself had set; the authority to register political parties under mandatory terms in only up to the deadline." In his dissenting opinion, Sarmiento stated that the NP-NPC merger was "a sham, highly dubious and shameless." (Read report.)