THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Monday started the removal of the illegal campaign posters of candidates and those posted in areas not designated by the Comelec as common poster areas. This paper reported that the removed illegal campaign posters in Cebu City’s south district alone filled four dump trucks.
Cebu City South District Election Officer Marchel Sarno said most of the candidates for the city’s posts and for senators violated the law. The sizes of the removed posters were beyond what is allowed by law, which is only two feet by three feet, and these were posted in areas not designated as the common poster areas.
Sarno, however, has resigned to the fact that while the candidates, who violated RA 9006, otherwise known as the Fair Election Act, could be prosecuted, it would be difficult to prove the case in court. Violators of this law who would be found guilty could be sentenced to six (6) years imprisonment and disqualified to hold public office.
This law is good for the environment as well as for the not-so-well-oiled candidates. However, because the allowed size is perhaps too small, the candidates with so much funds for the posters were compelled to print big or larger than life sizes so they would be visible even at a distance of about 500 meters.
The question that begs the answer is why did Comelec regulate the size of the poster? The answer is, of course, the Fair Elections Act. This law affords the candidates, very rich or not, equality or fairness during the campaign period. Thus, prescribing the uniform size of the campaign posters.
It’s kind of funny, though, that this law is better observed in the breach than compliance because the prohibition on oversized posters only starts when the official campaign period begins. Meaning, candidates could have very large posters as long as these are posted before the start of the official campaign period.
As I wrote in my Superbalita column yesterday, this law gives more work for the Comelec, which is undermanned. It dirties the environment because the campaign posters are posted anywhere even on trees, and is a waste of the resources of the Comelec as well as the candidates and other government agencies involved in the cleanup.
The Comelec should better improve, if not amend this law to give more teeth to it to ensure that prosecution of those who violated it would be successful. The Comelec should file the charges against those who may be liable to set an example. Otherwise, this law would just become another emasculated law.
That those illegal posters were posted not by the candidates themselves, or they could have been posted by the opposite camp to destroy the other party is a matter of defense by those who would be charged. The fact that the poster of a candidate blatantly did not comply with the size allowed by law is already evidence in itself against the candidate who is on the poster.
Every three years, this problem would be recurring. The Comelec should come up with its own regulations on campaign posters because Congress, except perhaps for some environment-conscious legislators, would not do anything that would harm their personal interests.