Can we jumpstart two urgent campaign reforms?

us on May 14, 2019. That’s eight months away, and a lot of time for those interested to organize their respective campaigns.

Yet one casual look at the environment seems to tell us that the senatorial campaign is already in full swing — and super rich candidates are already burning hundreds of millions of pesos on giant tarps, electronic billboards, advertorials and all forms of high-

The social media no longer seems as potent today as when DU30 ran in 2016. So many troll farms have dried up, and Facebook has recently deactivated a humungous number of accounts. For this reason, DU30’s minions who would like to imitate his successful use of it may not have an easy time. But it remains an important tool for his “candidates.”

A level playing field

Philippines and Smartmatic’s international chairman Lord Mark Malloch Brown was all that was needed to overturn all the recommendations

- ezuelans run our elections.

A quantum leap

We are a country of over 100 years. We should be able to conduct a truly honest and convincing

genuine political reform should begin there; but it should not end there. There should be a quantum jump in the quality of the men and women running for

opposite seems to be the case. Public office seems to attract the least attractive of public servants. This is not likely to change so long as elections are driven by money and the popular values of the cheapest entertainers. last election, voters set up shop in some areas to sell their votes. They had streamers hanging above them saying, “no money, no vote.” Some senatorial candidates who were running short of votes in the Manila count had to fly to Mindanao with suitcases full of cash to arrange for a miraculous surge. Whether one bought votes retail or in bulk, one politician said it scorched his insides and left a lingering taste of evil in his mouth infinitely worse than

Elections have become a vulgar money game, even for actors and entertainers.

elections, aside from my Batasan regional election in Bicol. On my

on the second, a little more than P7 million. On both elections, there were candidates who spent anywhere from P200 million to campaign period, rather than on the basis of his propaganda dur-

And yet this pre-campaign period

Comelec and the Supreme Court are concerned. This makes for a grossly uneven playing field in favor of this rich candidate.

is respectfully proposed that by a “non-candidate” before the

be automatically treated as part of the candidate’s “authorized

Only

all

if and when he decides not

that he was never a “candidate in disguise,” trying to circumvent

electoral reform is needed to favor penurious candidates.

The election law designates a 90- day campaign period for