The drive to the May 13 elections has begun for national candidates: 62 senatorial candidates and 134 party-list groups—a 90-day campaign period as determined by the Omnibus Election Code.
Both camps, the administration and the opposition, immediately shifted to first gear with their campaign drumbeat rolling in vote-rich areas of the metropolis and nearby urban areas.
The candidates present multiple layers of persuasion and commitment to public service, which unnecessarily smolder during the campaign period, with the candidates aiming to win over 2.5 million new registered voters from a total of 61 million counted by the Commission on Elections, the government’s poll watchdog.
The Senate race is seen as hidebound, with seven senators seeking reelection, six others wanting to return to the chamber and several prominent candidates, including those endorsed by Duterte, fighting over only 12 slots.
President Rodrigo Duterte, in mid-stream of his six-year term, headed a kick-off rally by his Partido Demokratikong Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan for its 11—one short to complete the list—senatorial candidates, including six “guest” candidates.
The opposition, on the other side, launched what they called a “game changer” strategy, with a house-to-house national campaign they believe will sustain their momentum up to E-Day.
At the same time, some candidates are participating in a “face-to-face persuasion campaign” where the party’s eight-point program is being launched for the information of the electorate.
Political platforms are carefully varnished, but necessarily, during the election campaign to enable the voters, many of whom have long ago made up their minds on who to elect as their voice in the national legislature to represent them properly.
We call on the Comelec to deliver on its warning to disqualify candidates who violate campaign rules, otherwise there is no point in making all the sound before and during the campaign period. It’s time to be tough.
At the same time, we stoutly ask the voters, who have an eye on their present and their future as well as on their children’s own, to keep reading the record and the rhetoric of the candidates and not be avoidably lost in them.
