Dirty politics

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor NANETTE L. GUADALQUIVER Busines Editor CEDELF P. TUPAS Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

It's election season once again and one of its uglier natural by-products are campaign posters being plastered on every available surface all over the country. The usual tough talk and posturing at the start of this election period by the Commission on Elections has led to a few arrests and confiscations of campaign materials. As usual, most of the people arrested were simply gofers who risked arrest and imprisonment for a few peso bills. The candidates whose names and faces they pollute our environs with will not even get a slap on the wrist.

The Comelec's early crackdown on these violators is a good sign. Hopefully, the news of those arrests will be enough to discourage future groups of desperate vandals from posting campaign materials in places other than the designated common poster areas. If the Comelec, the police, and local barangay officials do not falter in this quest of keeping our surroundings free and clean of the blight of illegal campaign posters until election day, then the Filipino people will have achieved a significant victory without a single ballot being cast.

Holding the local law enforcers and barangay officials accountable for the cleanliness of their surroundings during the elections is admirable. But if the Comelec is really serious about keeping our surroundings clean during the election season, then they must find a way to hold the candidates accountable for any breach in these rules and regulations which, in theory, should have been read and agreed upon by the candidates when they filed their certificates of candidacy. If the poor hungry man who agrees to illegally taint the walls of his own neighborhood with campaign posters for a pittance can be arrested and jailed for up to six years, then the person whose name and likeness he is posting and has nothing to lose, yet everything to gain, should also be threatened with a penalty severe enough for him to actually do something to stop this wasteful and hideous practice.*