VeriPol came from the rough latin Translation of Truth in Politics.
With the ongoing turmoil caused by the leaders of Eastern Europe and the upcoming elections in the Philippines this May 2022, we realized the importance of selecting quality leaders for our country. Also, we believe we should empower our voters to maximize their right to vote.
Currently, there is no single database that contains all information about the candidates, making it hard for voters to study each one. Considering that a voter has to make a lot of decisions in voting—one has to choose 15 people out of 261 candidates at the national level alone. Collectively, we have over 44,065 candidates vying for 18,180 positions of power in the 2022 elections. Without a central source of information, as a nation, it is collectively difficult to make the right decisions in electing officers, especially in the lower levels of government.
VeriPol primarily aligns with SDG 16. We believe that by promoting voter empowerment, smarter democracy, and electing the most qualified candidate, we will be able to fulfill four targets of SDG 16: substantially reduce corruption and bribery in all their forms; develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels; ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels; and lastly, broaden and strengthen the participation of developing countries in the institutions of global governance. VeriPol also relates to SDG 8 by providing transparency and promoting accountability in the government.
We are taking a big data approach to the problem, contrary to the orthodox qualitative research approach.
We have gathered, cleaned, and analyzed data from National Government Organizations and volunteer organizations: like COMELEC’s candidate list made up of 44,000 people, DTI’s Cities and Municipalities Competitive Index, the 13,000 house bills proposed in the 18th Congress, and DILG’s 400,000-seated barangay-level officials.
With the data mentioned above, we are able to build the profiles of the candidates for this May 2022 election. Furthermore, we have also contacted Non-Profit Organizations like: GoodGovPH and the UP Political Society for their domain expertise to help in designing and developing the course curriculum. We also contacted Vote Pilipinas and the Rundown PH, to collaborate on candidate data as they’ve gathered quality data for the presidential and senatorial candidates, respectively.
Additionally, we aim to help the voters complete their ballot by providing the My Candidates feature. Here, users can select the candidates they are in favor of, read about their platforms and background through each candidate profile. This encourages users to complete all available positions in the ballot maximizing their right to vote, and minimizing under voting.
We wanted to build this application because of our own experiences. With the upcoming elections this 2022 and the turmoil in Eastern Europe, we recognize the importance of choosing our leaders wisely.
Unfortunately, it is just too damn hard, not too mention time consuming, studying the candidates running for positions of power, majority I haven’t even heard of.