Premature
campaigning curse

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor CHERYL CRUZ Desk Editor PATRICK PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

 Next month hundreds of politicians will  file their certificates of candidacy for the elections that will be held in May 2013. Between then and the start of the official campaign period that is on February 12, 2013 for senators and party list groups, and March 29, 2013 for local candidates; the politicos who signified their intent to run for office are not yet considered as candidates and should not be campaigning. However, because many politicians are the type of people who wouldn’t think twice in exploiting a loophole to advance their own selfish interests, a lot of disgusting premature campaigning takes place during this time.

Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago has filed a bill that hopes to keep public officials from engaging in premature campaigning. Her bill would require candidates to file a certificate of intent to run for public office (Cirpo) six months before the deadline and as a prerequisite for the filing of certificates of candidacy.  Once a person files a Cirpo, he falls under all the legal prohibitions against premature campaigning.

This would include prohibitions against the following: Endorsing any product or service, paid or unpaid; accepting any employment in any media outfit as news anchor, writer or talent; buying media space to advertise himself; and engaging in any activity that the Commission on Elections considers as premature campaigning.

Sen. Santiago’s bill also intends to abolish the provision in the Poll Automation Law that provides that “any person who files his certificate of candidacy shall only be considered a candidate at the start of the campaign period for which he filed his certificate of candidacy.” This loophole that allows politicians to engage in premature campaigning is something that the Senator calls “preposterous, ridiculous and ludicrous.”

Those of us who are tired of premature campaigning and seeing the same people who are supposed to abide by and enforce our laws brazenly  ignore COMELEC’s half-hearted attempts to curb this despicable practice hope that this bill somehow gathers enough support among the same people who are guilty of that practice and allow it to provide a more level playing field during the elections.*