By Dolly Yasa
BACOLOD City – Negros Press Club (NPC) former-President Rey Siason, who ran for president in the club’s election on January 23, 2021, asked the club’s Commission on Elections to nullify the results amid claims of vote buying by the other party.
NPC is the oldest press club in the country and has more than 100 members from the print, broadcast and television outfits here.
Siason, an anchorman of MUEWS Radio, lost to Yves Montecillo, reporter and anchorman of RMN DYHB.
In a letter-complaint addressed to the NPC-Comelec through NPC president Glazyl Masculino, Siason said information circulating among members and on social media alleged that Montecillo’s group paid NPC members PHP1,000 each to vote for their entire slate from president down to board of directors.
Montecillo led the New Normal Slate while Siason headed the Team Power House composed of NPC past presidents.
Siason claimed that he was approached by some members telling him that they reportedly received PHP1,000 from the other group and asked him how much he will give.
He further said that as a past president and a lifetime member of the club “I deplore such acts of prostitution of our club by the so called New Normal Slate. Is this the new normal vote buying? Corruption of members and betrayal of what the NPC stands for that preserved the club’s 85 years of existence?”
“I condemn this act of corrupting the members of the club and dirtying the name of the club.”
He added that the same condemnation is directed at a businessman who allegedly provided the funds to Yves Montecillo and his running mate El John Castaño of Radyo Bandera.
“May I ask what the businessmen will ask in return of their investment?” Siason said, adding that the two (Montecillo and Castano) “pimped the club to their sponsors’ business interest and therefore both lost their moral ascendancy to lead the club.”
“We have a long-standing tradition of treating the members to lunch or even drinks and sponsoring their yearly dues which actions can be considered as gesture of camaraderie among us, everyone is free to enjoy the food and drinks without pressure at all to his/her choice of candidates.”
“But resorting to a desperate and despicable act of direct vote buying to win the election, destroyed the integrity of the club and scarred the NPC and all its members for life,” Siason added.
He also said that social media commentaries called the action as shameful and unfavorable words were thrown as well against the club and the media industry in general.
“We must stop this disease before the NPC is destroyed from within, this will set precedence and must be stopped now,” he stressed.
He also cited Montecillo as saying in an interview with DNX Digital Media that he rented two vans to ferry members to and from the election venue to cast their votes.
“Is this not tantamount to ‘hakot’? With or without the pandemic, to ‘hakot’ the voters in violation of their exercise of the right to vote. Therefore, I demand the recent election nullified and a new election be conducted to erase the doubts of winning through vote buying- their names are openly known be barred from candidacy and expelled from the club. They have the option to resign now before more scandal is created,” Siason said.
He added though that these moves “will at least redeem the integrity of the NPC and to show to the public how highly critical even of all the innocent media practitioners in Negros that its members do not tolerate the prostitution of the electoral process.”
Masculino said she has yet to meet with other officers as well as the club’s Comelec to take up the matter.
Montecillo, on the other hand, said that he will answer the complaint in the proper forum.
