CEBU CITY — Fresh from his two-day campaigning in Cebu, a known bailiwick of the administration party, Lakas Kampi-CMD presidential aspirant Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro topped a mock election during a forum for the youth at the Eduardo Aboitiz Development Studies Center here on Thursday.

Gibo garnered 69 votes from 140 youths who participated in the mock election following a forum that tackles the credentials of presidential candidates. Each participant were given two corn kernels, representing their choice for president and vice president, that they dropped on an empty water bottle that has the name of presidential and vice presidential bets.

Janelle Moran, a 16-year-old student of the Colegio de la Inmaculada Concepcion, said that she used to look at the commercials, and videos from the Internet and networking sites of the top three candidates in the survey, but through the research they did for the forum, her eyes were opened to the credentials of the candidates.

“I started being awed by Gibo’s vision and even it became stronger when I dug deeper into his platforms when we did the research, they were the visions I wanted for the country,” she said.

The RAFI held a forum entitled “Beyond the Campaign Jingle: Understanding Young Citizen’s Choices for 2010”. The mock election was held as part of the program. The RAFI designed the forum to provide a tool for the deliberate study and consideration of presidential and vice presidential candidates for the May 2010 election beyond campaign jingle, advertisements and intrigues.

The scholars of Young Minds Academy, a youth leadership and citizenship development program of RAFI, were the presenters of the program and gave the profile, accomplishments, platforms and otherrelevant information of their assigned candidate.

According to the Evelyn Castro, RAFI-EADSC executive director, the forum was intended to promote the proper selection of candidate.

“Our objective was really to instill the discipline of the research, to build their competence at the same time engage them in what was going in the country,” Castro said.