The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) is a non-profit organization that serves as a watchdog in Philippine elections. Despite being affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, it considers itself an independent, non-partisan, and non-sectarian organization. Its headquarters are located at the Pope Pius XII Center, United Nations Avenue, Ermita, Manila, Philippines. The Second P
lenary Council of the Philippines, held in February 1991, called for reforms in the conduct of elections in the Philippines. In May 1991, H.E. Jaime Cardinal Sin, Commission on Elections (Philippines) Comelec Commissioner Haydee Yorac, then-Laity President Henrietta T. de Villa, Bishop Gabriel Reyes, Msgr. Bayani Valenzuela, and thirty Parish Lay Leaders conceived of the idea of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) in Villa San Miguel in Mandaluyong City. In October 1991, the PPCRV was launched at St. Paul University, Quezon City, with around one thousand laypeople from the parishes of the Archdiocese of Manila. The next month, with the support of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, the PPCRV expanded its operations nationwide. The first test of PPCRV’s poll-watching activities came in the 1992 presidential elections. In its first electoral exercise, 346,688 PPCRV volunteers participated in poll-watching, voters’ assistance, assisting the Board of Election Inspectors, protecting election returns, monitoring electoral exercise, and watching the canvassing of votes.
