The question of premature campaigning
There are senatorial and even mayoralty and gubernatorial candidates today who are obviously and even blatantly doing premature campaigning, even before the official campaign period as determined by the Commission on Elections (Comelec). Such a practice is grossly disadvantageous to the poorer and lesser-known wannabees. Large campaign billboards and tarpaulin ads are mushrooming along the highways and in street corners and public places, displayed like crazy, with faces of incumbents and new aspirants greeting the people Merry Christmas and all sorts of alibis imaginable. Many TV and radio clips are being aired with rich and powerful candidates stating their slogans and advocacies, as if they have the panacea for all that ails the country and people.
One female candidate, who is an incumbent, still uses the image of her late foster father who was an idol of the masses because of his movie portrayals as the hero of the oppressed and the victims of injustice. Another lady bet, a sister of a former senator and defeated vice presidential candidate, uses the popularity of the windmills in her northern provinces as the showcase of her so-called vision to solve all the problems of poverty and the peoples' hunger and want. A male former candidate for senator who ran earlier for the same post, and who was elbowed out from the winning 12 slots, by the victory of Riza Hontiveros and Leila de Lima, is being endorsed by the president himself. One bet who is the closest to the president, has his ads all over the country. These people must be very rich to be able to afford such high-cost and highprofile campaigning.
The question is: Is such campaigning legal? Our answer is that it used to be illegal under Section 20 of the Omnibus Election Code. But with the passage of RA 8436, and RA 9369, the same is no longer illegal. The Supreme Court, in a case decided on November 25, 2005, held that under the Automatic Election Law or RA 8436, and under RA 9369, a person is considered a candidate only during the official campaign period as designated by the Comelec. The case involved a mayoralty candidate in Santa Monica, Surigao del Norte. She won the case of premature campaigning and she was exonerated due to the new laws mentioned. Today, not being a campaign period yet, nobody is still a candidate. Thus those who can afford, and who have no thought for fair and equal playing field, may go ahead, burn their money, or the money of their financier, to campaign ahead of others.
This new scheme of things is being criticized by both senators Koko Pimentel and Richard Gordon. A new senate Bill 2064 by Gordon seeks to reinstate the criminal penalty for such premature campaigning. On October 18, 2018, the Senate Committee on Electoral Reforms and Peoples' Participation voted to restore Section 20 of the Omnibus Election Code, and prohibits campaigning the moment any person files his certificate of candidacy, and not only upon the start of the campaign period. Gordon criticized premature campaigning as it puts at an undue disadvantage the poorer and lesser-known bets. Today, there are candidates who are playing roles in the political telenovela “Ang Probinsyano.” They are unfairly being given more exposure than their more qualified rivals.
Good citizens should support the Pimentel and Gordon initiative and help level the playing fields for political exercises, both campaigns and elections. Or else, political elitism shall remain as the bane that slowly disables our democracy.