The Commission on Elections has ordered administration candidates for senator to take down the oversize campaign materials featuring PDP-Laban party bets in an electronic billboard on a condominium building along EDSA or face charges for violating election laws.
In a series of Twitter posts, Comelec Commissioner Rowena Guanzon said the poll body issued the warning in response to online criticism of the billboards featuring Maguindanao Rep. Dong Mangudadatu, former Philippine National Police Chief Ronald dela Rosa, former special assistant to the president Christopher Go, Senator Aquilino Pimentel III and former presidential adviser for political affairs Francis Tolentino, all senatorial bets of the ruling PDP-Laban party.
“These oversize campaign materials on electronic billboards are prohibited,” Guanzon said in her tweet, saying that “by public demand, candidates Bong Go and Tolentino please take down your posters now.”
Two days ago, Comelec spokesman James Jimenez also tweeted photos of Go’s campaign posters along Quezon Avenue.
“These posters are of the right size, but the location is wrong,” Jimenez tweeted.
The statements citing campaign violations by the administration candidates are welcome, coming from a poll agency that is often perceived as being too lenient, particularly when it comes to applying the rules to the party in power.
But good governance doesn’t begin and end with Twitter posts, and calling out the candidates just isn’t enough.
If its warnings are to be taken seriously, the Comelec needs to ensure that follow-up actions are taken in a timely manner, and that the offending campaign materials are indeed removed, or, if they are not, that the appropriate sanctions under the law are imposed. Finally, it must also publicize these actions as an example to all others who violate campaign laws.
Of course, it isn’t only the Comelec that needs to set an example.
Candidates who aspire to become lawmakers must first show they know how to respect the law.
It isn’t enough for these candidates to claim that the illegal campaign materials were put up by unnamed supporters without their knowledge or approval. Nor is it enough that they issue a public statement pleading with these followers to take down the posters. What they must do is prove their sincerity and ability to follow the rules by having their staff remove the offending materials wherever they are found and reported. After all, if they cannot follow the rules, what gives them the right to set them for everybody else?