Campaign comics should be factual, Leyte solon says

Comic books must remain factual even if they are meant to promote certain candidates, Leyte Representative Martin Romualdez said during on Friday.

Romualdez was reacting to the comic book that supposedly depicted how former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, the administration ppresidential candidate, saved lives when super typhoon Yolanda hit Romualdez's province.

The congressman is running for senator under the opposition United Nationalist Alliance of Vice President Jejomar Binay.

"You have to base it on facts naman. Comic books should be based on facts and then of course you try to simplify the issues (readily so it) would be very acceptable and agreeable to the masses especially to the children," Romualdez explained.

Tacloban Mayor Alfred Romualdez, the congressman's cousin, got into a row with Roxas over the national government's response to the disastrous 2013 storm that killed over 6,000 people.

Romualdez, who admitted to only reading about the comics on the news, compared preparing such campaign materials to baking bread and said interpretation of events and its presentation was crucial in gaining a positive reception from its audience.

"If you bake the bread, hindi tama yung luto, either overcooked or undercooked o hindi tama yung pinasok mong rekado, hindi mo mabebenta, hindi mo makakain. As they say in English, the proof of the pudding is in the eating," he explained.

Despite his criticism, Romualdez said that he would rather think of the positives that came out of the collective effort to mitigate Yolanda's effects as thinking of the opposite brought out traumatizing memories of the deluge.

"Sa lahat ng nakita kong pinsala diyan sa Yolanda, kung iisipin ko yung negative, mabubuwang ako. I have to look at the positive side of it," he said. —Rie Takumi/NB, GMA News