Chairman Emerson Carlos of the Metro Manila Development Authority said his agency will start its “Oplan Baklas” operation on Feb. 9 removing all illegal campaign materials or those placed beyond designated areas.
“We cannot just allow candidates to post their campaign materials on electric posts, trees and other public structures,” said Carlos.
He said the Commission on Elections deputized the MMDA to remove and report illegal billboards and other campaign materials posted outside the common poster areas in Metro Manila.
“The Comelec will be in-charge with the punishments and liabilities to be faced by the person who posted the materials or by the candidate involved,” Carlos said.
Based on the Comelec resolution, the “common poster areas shall be allowed by the Election Officer only in selected public places such as plazas, markets, barangay centers and the like where posters may be readily seen or read, with the heaviest pedestrian and/or vehicular traffic in the City or Municipality.”
Garbage or waste to be generated by the illegal campaign materials will be kept by the MMDA and will be recycled to produce tents.
Carlos earlier asked the Comelec to provide at least a representative during the operation to make their task easier.
Ecowaste Coalition recently urged the poll body to take steps not only to safeguard the ballot, but also to protect the environment from being destroyed further because of irresponsible campaign activities for this year’s elections.
They suggested that the Comelec impose Resolution No. 9615, that “encourages parties and candidates to use recyclable and environment-friendly materials and avoid those that contain hazardous chemicals and substances in the production of their campaign and election propaganda.”
The group also urged the poll body to enforce the Memorandum Circular on “Basura-Free Elections” it released along with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Department of Interior and Local Government in 2013 to, among other things, “reduce the amount of generated waste during the campaign, election, and post-election periods.”
Ecowaste came up with the appeal after they observed in the 2007, 2010 and 2013 elections how the country’s electoral as well as health and environmental laws were ignored by certain candidates and their supporters in their efforts to campaign and win.
They cited some of the more familiar lapses:
-The unchecked use of campaign materials that are seldom reused or recycled such as tarpaulins, posters and buntings, and confetti in campaign rallies.
-The uncontrolled plastering of campaign posters outside Comelec-designated areas, most notoriously on trees, electric posts and walls
-The hanging of campaign flaglets, lanterns and streamers in streets and alleys;
-The display of “indirect” campaign-related banners such as graduation and fiesta “greetings” and announcements extolling the projects and achievements of politicians;
-The unregulated noise from mobile political propaganda and during campaign meetings;
-The rampant distribution and littering of sample ballots on election day;
-The open burning of campaign waste, which, like littering, is a prohibited act under RA 9003, the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act; and
-The massive use of polystyrene containers for drinks and meals served inside the polling centers for members of the Board of Election Inspectors, poll watchers and volunteers, and the lack of an ecological systems for managing discards such as food leftovers and their single-use containers.
-The failure to immediately remove campaign materials after the election period.
Ecowaste sent a letter addressed to the Office of Comelec chairman Andres Bautista requesting the agency to exercise its authority to “enjoin candidates and their campaign machineries to commit to ‘green’ their campaign and do away with the traditional ‘guns, goons, gold and garbage’ that have long typified our vibrant but ecologically flawed democratic exercise.”