Control

Public sentiment against epal, spearheaded by an online campaign against politicians who like to take credit for government projects, appears to be working, according to the Commission on Elections.

Comelec officials said there is a noticeable decrease in the proliferation of epal streamers and billboards in this campaign season.

It has also helped that several agencies have banned politicians from claiming credit for social welfare programs of the national government. These programs include the conditional cash transfer of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, which the agency plus its partners such as the World Bank want to keep out of the reach of politicians. The CCT may be suspended during the campaign season, to prevent the program from being used by anyone for partisan purposes.

Another program is health care coverage under PhilHealth. Some politicians reportedly want to put their names on PhilHealth cards or be involved in the processing of membership. The Department of Health has rejected this.

All these measures have not stopped some politicians from displaying streamers and billboards featuring their names and photos wherever they please, announcing how well they have served their constituents. The materials do not ask people outright to vote for the politicians, but for local candidates it’s clearly early campaigning.

The Comelec, however, has indicated it is largely powerless to stop early campaigning. Perhaps state auditors can step in and take a closer look at the source of funding for such propaganda materials.

Surely authorities can also find a way of strictly enforcing rules confining propaganda materials to Comelec-designated areas.

And surely different agencies can find a way – without resorting to legislation – of stopping politicians from plastering every available public space with their photos and names. If it’s not epal, the politicians offer to-whom-it-may-concern greetings for every imaginable event including graduation. Some announce projects such as mass weddings and free circumcision. Others remind voters of tax deadlines.

People complained when Metro Manila seemed to be blanketed with commercial billboards. People should also complain when even power and telephone lines and trees are covered with political propaganda materials. Posters are plastered on every wall and lamppost. You don’t know which is uglier – the urine-stained dirty wall or the urine-stained posters plastered on the dirty wall.

It’s an assault on aesthetics, and an unlawful appropriation of public space.

If ordinary people try to display a streamer in a public area, offering a product for sale or greeting friends on their graduation, for example, the government will charge thousands of pesos for it.

Why should politicians, who are selling themselves to voters, have the privilege to advertise for free in public areas, with taxpayers footing the bill for the materials? Isn’t this another version of wang-wang mentality that should be stopped?

Worse, when the elections are over, taxpayers must again foot the bill for the massive cleanup.

There ought to be a way for authorities, led by the Comelec, to put an end to this. Even candidates should welcome the move. When election day approaches, rival candidates cover each other’s posters in a silly battle for public exposure, with the displays changing almost every day.

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The Comelec admittedly has its hands full. But streamers and similar propaganda materials are the most visible reminders of the campaign season. If the Comelec can regulate this, it will go a long way in showing control over the election process.

This will be Sixto Brillantes’ first nationwide elections since being named Comelec chairman. His predecessor, Jose Melo, will be remembered for happily announcing, just hours after the polling centers closed on election day 2010, that based on the nation’s first fully automated vote, Benigno Simeon Aquino III had won as president.

The Senate, true to form, resisted the dramatic change and insisted on its glacial canvassing. But even if the chamber, under its octogenarian leadership, had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century voting process, there was no turning back for Pinoys.

This May, voters will want to know election results ASAP. Any delay will reflect badly on whoever is doing the vote count.

Brillantes needs to do more to reassure the public that he made the right decision to use the same Smartmatic precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines used in 2010.

During the mock elections held earlier this month, one PCOS machine spat out ballots. The machine was at the first voting center visited by Brillantes. Initialization of another machine in another polling center was delayed.

Brillantes described these as glitches. Comelec officials said there are 81,000 PCOS machines for 76,000 polling centers, meaning there are about 5,000 spares in case other machines experience glitches on election day.

In a small sampling, however, those glitches were significant. The mock elections involved 1,639 voters in 11 polling centers across the country. There’s still time for the Comelec to hold more mock elections to minimize the probability of more glitches in May.

In the elections, the Comelec has to assert control – over both man and machine.