Editorial: In a dog eat dog world, the dogs win

IT'S a dog eat dog world, especially during elections season when just about everyone takes a swipe at their rivals and put one over the other every chance they can get, by hook or by crook.

We only need to see the posters and tarpaulins now littering out city streets.

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The Omnibus Election Code Sec. 80 states: "Election campaign or partisan political activity outside campaign period. - It shall be unlawful for any person, whether or not a voter or candidate, or for any party, or association of persons, to engage in an election campaign or partisan political activity except during the campaign period: Provided, That political parties may hold political conventions or meetings to nominate their official candidates within thirty days before the commencement of the campaign period and forty-five days for Presidential and Vice-Presidential election."

Sec. 82 states: "Lawful election propaganda. - Lawful election propaganda shall include:

(a) Pamphlets, leaflets, cards, decals, stickers or other written or printed materials of a size not more than eight and one-half inches in width and fourteen inches in length;

(b) Handwritten or printed letters urging voters to vote for or against any particular candidate;

(c) Cloth, paper or cardboard posters, whether framed or posted, with an area exceeding two feet by three feet, except that, at the site and on the occasion of a public meeting or rally, or in announcing the holding of said meeting or rally, streamers not exceeding three feet by eight feet in size, shall be allowed: Provided, That said streamers may not be displayed except one week before the date of the meeting or rally and that it shall be removed within seventy-two hours after said meeting or rally; or

(d) All other forms of election propaganda not prohibited by this Code as the Commission may authorize after due notice to all interested parties and hearing where all the interested parties were given an equal opportunity to be heard: Provided, That the Commission's authorization shall be published in two newspapers of general circulation throughout the nation for at least twice within one week after the authorization has been granted.

The same is echoed in the Fair Election Practices Act, while several other laws prohibit the placing of campaign materials on posts, trees, and public structures.

We just have to look out our vehicle windows to know no one is following the law. And there are a lot of violators as well for local positions; one even having gone on barangay to barangay sorties promising this and that once elected, in utter violation of Philippine laws because local campaign doesn't start until March 26.

Elections have become an exercise on how far candidates can violate the law without being censured. The politicians have a throng of lawyers to see what can be circumvented because in a dog eat dog world, the dogs win.

In religious discussions (whether Christian, Muslim or Jewish), dogs signify those who make the faithful unclean, and there are a lot of instances where the dogs are thus pictured in the Bible and in the Hadith. The dog-lovers may not agree, but that's the context within which this is used.

We only have to see the steady rise in "popularity" of candidate Manny Villar after his very expensive television propaganda called infomercials. The righteous among us can only cringe as the PR boys shout alleluia because of the statistical tie already achieved.

But then, righteousness had never had a place in our kind of politics.

Lamangan, oneupmanship. That's politics for us.

Pity the real dogs for they are likened to creatures who steal, kill, and connive to feed insatiable greed. The real dogs only eat to live and pander to their master's commands and actions.