In seven days the waiting will be over for tens of thousands of applicants jostling for about 18, 000 casual jobs in government.
But none will be heaving a huge sigh of relief more than El Niño victims, who hope that the embargo on aid will be lifted once the voting is over.
This climatic anomaly was worsened by an aberration of the political kind. You see, among the prohibited acts during the campaign period is the giving of aid to calamity victims.
It boggles the mind on why providing succor to the down and out must be booked as an election offense.
It is tantamount to penalizing acts of compassion for the flimsy reason that it could sway voters’ choices at a time when candidates are hustling for votes. Applied to El Niño, it is akin to stopping the flow of water but allowing only hot air to blow out from those who step on rally stages.
It is like asking charity to go on forced leave because the brass bands of candidates is marching in.
Traditionally, campaign rules generally frown upon retail spending by any government agency for fear that even charitable acts can be leveraged into votes by those who perform them.
While it is true that many clever politicians in the past have invoked minor calamities in dipping into the public till, and later masqueraded vote-buying as altruism, the obvious ravages of El Niño argue that the prohibition must be sidelined.
Our election officials should have acted quickly on requests by local officials that they be permitted to use funds for El Niño relief. Better yet, issue a national directive lifting the embargo but providing guidance so as to prevent public funds from being used for electioneering.
If government must err, then it rather be on the side of compassion.
Let elections be the collateral damage of a relaxed rule than victims be punished by a stringent regulation which make them victims twice over—first by a natural calamity, and then by a man-made rule.
The case of rules paralyzing aid was evident in the case of Cebu where the provincial government was ready to roll our assistance to farmers but was stopped by the existing election ban on such kind of activity.
Following established rules, the provincial government first placed the province under a state of calamity due to El Niño, a declaration which in ordinary times would have been enough to trigger the release of aid.
But without the explicit approval of the Commission on Elections, any form of assistance is a no-go.
The green light must come from Manila, and ignoring it constitutes an election offense, punishable with one to six years imprisonment and a lifetime ban from holding public office, among others.
The Comelec has already prescribed an alternative—that aid be routed through the Red Cross and the DSWD. But the problem is DSWD’s organization stops at the regional level, from thereon all social welfare offices are local government instrumentalities.
The idea of tapping the Red Cross is also good but it would be the first to lecture anyone who cares to listen that it needs all hands on board in making sure aid reaches victims fast.
If this happened in Cebu, I wonder if the same restrictions were confronted by other LGUs as well, or for that matter by national agencies whose work, not only in the field of disaster relief, but in construction, to cite one example, was hindered by the temporary freeze on these activities.
I think, after the dust of the current elections has settled, we should revisit our election rules and examine how they affect government activities during the election season.
From where I stand, I see no compelling reason as to why bulldozers in road construction projects should retreat when candidates’ motorcades begin crisscrossing the country.
When the infrastructure schedule is prohibited from overlapping with the election calendar, then that is progress interrupted.
When aid is blocked for fear that it could seduce voters, then humanitarian considerations should trump misplaced fears that no-strings-attached aid could corrupt voters.
There is a clear disjoint in policy when candidates are allowed to blare almost P1-million per 30-second ads on TV non-stop while government agencies are not allowed to give five kilos of rice to drought victims.
When we modernize elections, it is not just installing voting machines. We also have to rid the rulebook of outdated regulations.