Comelec campaign vs epal posters paying off

MANILA, Philippines - Fewer campaign materials adorned Metro Manila on the third day of the official campaign period for national candidates yesterday.

Commission on Elections (Comelec) spokesman James Jimenez said in the past, by the third day of the campaigning the underpass near the Quiapo Church in Manila would be covered with unlawful campaign posters.

“If you go around Metro Manila, even the side streets, there are fewer (posters),” he said.

“There are certain stretches with one or five posters. There’s no more wall-papering of the entire stretch.”

Jimenez said the Comelec gets calls from politicians inquiring about campaign poster rules.

“Politicians are asking us – ‘what do we need to do, who do we need to talk to?’” he said.

“So there are efforts to reach out and we see that this campaign is working.”

On the second day of the campaign period for senators and party-list groups last Wednesday, Jimenez led a team of Comelec personnel to document violations of campaign poster rules along Taft Avenue, Quirino Avenue, Old Sta. Mesa and inside the campus of Polytechnic University of the Philippines in Manila.

The team observed “potential violations” of the rules in the posters of party-list groups Anakpawis, Ang Kabataan, Akap-Bata, Gabriela and Buhay and senatorial candidate Juan Edgardo Angara.

Angara immediately ordered the removal of the campaign materials that the Comelec had reported to him.

The team also observed that posters were pasted on prohibited areas like electric posts, trees, plant boxes and inside the school, and not in the designated common poster areas in Plaza Dilaw and Old Sta. Mesa.

Jimenez urged the public to remain vigilant against unlawful campaign posters and report them to the Comelec through twitter account @comelec and website mycomelec.tv.

“Although in general the compliance with the rules is excellent, that does not mean we stop monitoring. We have to monitor this continuously,” he said.  

Akap Bata party-list urged yesterday the Comelec to increase the common poster areas nationwide.

Arlene Brosas, Akap Bata national secretary-general, said the common poster areas were very limited and small for almost 250 national candidates.

“It will also be expensive for marginalized and poor party-list group like them to erect their own poster structures in strategic spots across the country,” she said. – Sheila Crisostomo, Helen Flores