NEXT WEEK, the campaign season for president, vice president, senator, and party-list starts. Expect frenzy handshakes, speeches, rallies. Expect vehicles with sound systems blaring out campaign jingles.
Yes, expect a so-called “poster war” among candidates. Iloilo City, for example, is fast being covered with campaign posters.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has designated “common poster areas” where candidates can display their posters with specific sizes. Of course, they can also post in private properties but with the consent of the owners. Yet despite these, we see posters all over; it’s a pandemonium of smiling faces, mostly heavily Photoshopped. The candidates’ usual excuse is that they have no control over eager supporters displaying their campaign materials.
This breaking of the common poster area rule alone indicates what kind of candidates we have. It is sad. If they can’t follow a simple rule, how can we expect them to adhere to more consequential laws of the land such as those pertaining to the use f public funds?
Comelec also has stringent rules in the carrying of firearms, the conduct of watchers in polling places, the wearing of t-shirts and other campaign paraphernalia. Will candidates adhere to them?
We pray there will be less election hotspots, too. Intense political rivalries must not result to violent physical confrontations and worse, loss of lives.
We long for peaceful, orderly, honest, and credible elections on May 9, 2022. The sure way to achieve this is for candidates and their supporters to strictly observe the Commission on Elections’ rules and regulations.
