Comelec's 'shame' campaign: Will it work on the shameless?

COMMISSION on Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos Sr. has given administration senatorial candidate Prospero Pichay Jr. the ultimatum for violating the poll body's directive on designated common poster areas for those vying for public office this coming May 14, 2007 elections.

Abalos, who has witnessed for himself the violations when he inspected Cubao in Quezon City and Sta. Mesa in Manila yesterday, has ordered Pichay, the three-term Surigao del Sur congressman, to remove the illegal posters plastered on walls and Metro Rail Transit posts within three days or else face prosecution and potential disqualification.

Fuming on radio a couple of weeks ago, Abalos also wants chiefs of police and barangay officials held liable for the existence of illegal campaign posters in their areas of responsibility.

[ View an image gallery of violations regarding campaign materials. ]

Recently, the poll body has also directed its law department to file criminal charges against two Manila congressional candidates for alleged premature campaigning. The case stemmed from a complaint by a Manila resident about posters bearing holiday greetings of the two candidates — Rep. Rodolfo Bacani and businessman Manuel Bagatsing — that have not been removed despite the Comelec's January 18 deadline.

Even much earlier, the Comelec also gave another TEAM Unity senatorial hopeful, actor Cesar Montano, a stern warning to have the billboard ads featuring him as image model immediately taken down.

For an electorate already inured to seeing election laws wantonly ignored by candidates even as the Comelec seemingly turns a blind eye and deaf ear to the transgressions, the current tough image being projected by the poll body is a reassuring whiff of fresh air.

After all, the enduring image of an ineffective poll body in the public's mind was that of its former chair Bernardo Pardo, who quipped in 1998 that he saw no campaign posters in violation of the law while he comfortably sat inside his tinted Mercedes Benz. There were as well the incidents that served only to cast doubts about the Comelec's seriousness in enforcing the law, like in the case of the sudden relief of the National Capital Region election director in 2004, who was vocal about the campaign violations, including those allegedly committed by the camp of the incumbent, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Today even former Comelec chair Christian Monsod is happy with the way the poll body is doing its job.

"This is only the first part, warning first. Let's see what happens if the candidates do not comply. Give it a chance," advises Monsod, who also notes how the Comelec, unlike during his watch, is even fortunate to have the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) to help it enforce election laws.

But there are also those who remain non-believers and ask how much of this no-nonsense stance is actually just for show, expressing instead apprehensions as to how far the Comelec would really go in running after election campaign violators.

"It's all appearance so far," says Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform (IPER), saying that he cannot recall any prosecution of a single candidate that has led to his or her disqualification for violating election campaign rules. (The PCIJ has requested the Comelec's law department for a historical list of campaign violators and the status of their cases but the poll body has yet to act on it.)

To be sure, there have been cases filed against erring candidates and their supporters, but these have not prospered at all. Says former poll commissioner Mehol Sadain, "They usually suffer from weaknesses, among which are a lack of, or disinterest, by complainants and witnesses, hence the difficulty of directly linking the (campaign) materials to the politicians."

This Casiple mainly attributes to the poll body's weak political will to strictly prosecute violators, as well as on weak election laws.

Sadain agrees, although he says the Comelec only acts as a fiscal in these cases, whose responsibility is primarily to conduct preliminary investigations into the alleged offenses. Once the case is filed, the litigation is already in the hands of the court.

"What we should have is a specific law providing for an automatic assumption of liability, that the candidate reaping the benefit should be held responsible for the illegal materials," Sadain says.

As it is, the common defense — or palusot (alibi) — is to disown any responsibility for the illegal campaign posters and to put the blame on political rivals who are supposedly out to sabotage the candidate who is the subject of the materials in question.

At the same time, as Abalos himself pointed out, the concerned candidate only serves to gain from the offense, promoting his or her candidacy in the process to the disadvantage of other candidates even if he or she has to comply with the Comelec directive to remove the illegal posters within three days from notice.

But while the Comelec has been very vocal about the illegal postings, it has not been quite so with respect to non-compliance with other rules governing campaign materials. Take for instance the allowed size of posters, which as the Omnibus Election Code stipulates, should generally not exceed an area of two feet by three feet. The only exception, which allows for a streamer size of up to an area of three feet by eight feet, is when candidates are holding a public meeting or rally, or announcing the holding of such events.

The law is also specific as to the time and duration that such streamers should be displayed — which is one week before the date of the meeting or rally and only allowed a period of 72 hours after the said meeting or rally.

In Quezon City alone, streamers within or exceeding the legally mandated allowable size freely hang from power lines, electric posts, and walls despite the lack of scheduled meetings or rallies by candidates.

Beyond these, other overlooked violations, says a Comelec official who requested not to be named, include non-disclosure of the donor and printer of the campaign materials, and unaccounted expenditures that accrue from campaign spending — such as printing and distribution of campaign posters — without the written consent of the candidates. In many cases, the donor's real name and address are not provided, with the name replaced with the generic term "Friends of" followed by the candidate's name.

Yet another flaw in the law — or butas sa batas, as Sadain prefers to put it — that makes a mockery of the concept of fair elections is the definition of a candidate.

A candidate, under the Omnibus Election Code, is any person aspiring for or seeking an elective public office, who has filed a certificate of candidacy by himself or through an accredited political party, aggroupment or coalition of parties.

Candidates have been taking advantage of this definition, and has been particularly observed this year with television and radio ads. Prior to the start of the campaign period for candidates aspiring for national positions, a surfeit of ads with obviously political intentions from known senatorial bets had been airing on primetime TV.

The TV ads, says the election official, are tantamount to premature campaigning as the exposure already gave them an undue advantage over other candidates. Such an offense carries with it a penalty of one to six years imprisonment and disqualification from seeking public office.

The campaign ads — whether in the form of TV ads, posters or streamers — should be confined only to the campaign period, stresses Sadain.

If it finds criminal liability on the part of the two Manila congressional candidates, Bacani and Bagatsing, he says, Comelec's next step is to conduct a motu propio investigation of similar cases of premature campaigning to avoid accusations of being selective. He specifically cites those involving the son of Caloocan City Mayor Erico Echiverri and some of the senatoriables.

Those who had TV ads prior to the campaign period include Bukidnon Rep. Jose Miguel Zubiri, former presidential chief of staff Michael Defensor, and reelectionist senators Manuel Villar, Ralph Recto, and Edgardo Angara.

In this light, the same election official says however that it has to be made clear in the law that the 120-minute aggregate alloted per national candidate should apply from the start of the election period and not from the filing of the certificate of candidacy.

Sadain is also all for amending the law on political ads but he is not too optimistic. "Yes, dapat lang. The problem though is the people who will amend it are the same people who will be adversely affected by it. Kaya ayaw nila."

But given the state of our election laws, and with much needed amendments likely to suffer the same fate of pieces of legislation as the ban on political dynasties, Sadain is of the view that simply making an example of erring candidates will not be an effective deterrent for them to stop violating campaign rules.

Abalos though, acknowledging the difficulty of prosecuting candidates for alleged election campaign violations as it entails a lengthy process, has deemed a "shame campaign" against violators in the media as the "most effective way" to deter the practice.

Such a campaign has found support from the likes of Monsod who thinks prosecution would be pursuing more important cases like acts of violence. "What is important is the illegal ones are brought down so as to make examples of the worst ones as deterrents."

That particularly to the cynical, however, makes one basic assumption: that a shame campaign, in spite of our political culture, can be effective against the shameless.