Ducky Paredes

“If we want our elections to be truly fair, we must allow the candidates to campaign to their heart’s content.”

by Ducky Paredes

We have so many laws on Elections (BP 881,  RA 9006, RA 6646, RA 7166, among them) , which are actually violated in spirit beginning on the first day of the year prior to elections and even earlier.

This time around with the elections scheduled for May 2010, we have had “informercials”  (thinly veiled commercials) from just about anyone in public office who has any ambition for elective position in the next election. We also have endorsements and outsight campaigning going on.

How can they do this? One interpretation is that as long as one has not filed for his certificate of candidacy, he cannot be considered to be campaigning, After all, how can he be campaigning if he is not a candidate and the period for campaigning has not yet begun.

To me, this is all foolish sophistry. Besides, these rules are hardly followed, anyway.

Why not scrap all those rules and regulations. Allow everyone to campaign as long and as early as they please. If we want to have some control. Let us just limit the money that they can spend to get elected. The ones who start earlier will use up their allocation faster than those who wait for a reasonable time prior to better chance of getting himself elected than someone who starts out as a virtual unknown.

An unknown needs a longer campaign period to reach the level of voter familiarity of those who have been there earlier. I saw this in the United States where virtual unknowns bought hours of TV time and – voila! – The next day they had made themselves known to each and every voter.

If we want our elections to be truly fair, we must allow the candidates to campaign to their heart’s content. Let the voters decide if they find the early campaigners obnoxious or disruptive. Certainly, allowing them to do as they please is better than having rules that are, anyway, honored more in the breach than in the observance.

What would be tragic, in fact, would be if someone wins the 2010 vote for the presidency will later be found to have violated campaign rules by having participated in a political parade before the campaign period begun (as the Supreme court recently ruled against a town mayor who won the election in 2004).

Yet, no one is ever disqualified for vote buying, which is openly practiced at all levels of the campaign on election day itself.

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All the time that he was doing his work as the Chairman of the MMDA, Bayani Fernando felt that his party and the country’s leadership appreciated what he was doing. After all, when he was given the job, his instructions were crystal-clear: Do in Metro Manila what you did in Marikina.

What he did in Marikina was magical; not only did he change the face of Marikina, Bayani also changed the town’s character and the mindset of the resident of his city. Where before they would be inexact about where they lived, after Bayani had done his work, Marikina’s citizens proudly proclaimed that they lived in their city.

It must have been a great disappointment for BF to realize that the executive committee of the Lakas-Kampi-CMD were of the opinion that he could not win even as they chose someone whose poll stats were even lower than his own.

Clearly, the politicians in his party do not agree that political will is anything important in a leader. This is what Bayani has that most other candidates do not have. The party would rather have a candidate who will go for the popular rather than the right thing to do. Too bad for Bayani; too bad for this country.

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We have a letter: “You hit the nail on the head which is bulls eye when you described in your column that Sen. Panfilo (Ping) Lacson was a very “ungrateful” person after he was taken cared of and supported by then President Joseph Ejercito Estrada until he climbed to the position of Director General of the Philippine National Police.

“I grew up in Caramoan, Camarines Sur where the late Public Relations Executive Salvador P. Dacer took up his high school education from Caramoan High School (which is now known as the United High School). He was known as a hard working student. On the other hand, the late Emmanuel Corbito was a son of a Barangay Official in Barangay Guijalo, Caramoan, Camarines Sur.

“The people in Caramoan, Presentacion, and Garchitoriano towns in Camarines Sur are waiting for the outcome of the investigation of the Dacer-Corbito double murder case and in fact, most of the people in these three towns do not believe that former President Joseph Ejercito Estrada has a hand in the murder case.

 “They feel that Sen. Lacson has to clearly answer for the murder charges because he allegedly hated Dacer because of his opposition to Lacson’s appointment to the PNP post because at that time Mr. Dacer was batting for the retention of the incumbent, Gen. Lastimoso. At the same time, Lacson hated Dacer because of his handling of a client against Mr. Lacson about shares of stock of a company.

“I feel that the media should not create a cloudy situation about the Dacer-Corbito double murder charges.

 “Thank you for your clear write-up on Sen. Lacson whom we believe is very ungrateful person because he has bitten the hands that fed him.” — Jose Maria Santiago, Barangay Salvacion, Caramoan, Camarines Sur

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hvp 09.21.09

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