The campaign season is officially on, although candidates have been plastering our nation with their names and faces since the last quarter of 2024, really starting at around the MassKara festival, when they had to excuse to be a festival “well-wisher” when it was actually premature campaigning that our Commission on Elections and government in general have decided to ignore due to a convenient electoral law loophole that nobody responsible has ever bothered fixing, despite being so blatantly abused by every politician and their dynasty members.
Because the official campaign period for national candidates has begun, their posters that are not in the designated poster areas are now supposedly illegal. But despite Comelec’s “Oplan Baklas” and a host of photo opportunities for “fair play” covenants, those posters are still out there in the wild, along with posters of local candidates that are just as obnoxious but not yet illegal because their particular campaign period has not yet started.
Most of us have resigned ourselves to the reality that there is nothing we can do about this ugly and illegal campaign, and that’s just life in the Philippines during an election year. With government officials unwilling to do anything significant, all we can count on is our brain’s ability to filter out the garbage after we get used to being surrounded by it.
I’m sure that like me, many of us have been asking ourselves the question if we have the power to remove or deface the campaign materials that are posted on the walls of our homes or places of work. And while the answer to that question should definitely be a “hell yes,” the problem lies with their unlimited resources versus our DIY means. Just because we are able to take down the posters they put up on the walls of private property, nothing will still stop their minions from coming back to replace whatever we take down. So, for those whose homes or businesses have already been victimized, good luck for the next few months.
The next question a lot of home/business owners who don’t live in gated villages often ask is if there is anything we can do about the public spaces right outside our property? While our walls may be off limits, how about a foot or two away from those walls? My home sits on a corner lot, just a block from the highway, and when it is election season, a makeshift billboard made of election tarps pops up at that corner. It is not a common poster area, and I have often been tempted to knock or burn those tarps down, but since it is already outside my property line, I don’t think I can.
If the politicos are not willing to take action, since they are the ones doing most of the violating anyway, wouldn’t it be helpful if the Comelec or the local government units could find a way to deputize the private sector so we can defend our own neighborhoods and backyards from illegal and unwelcome campaign materials?
If citizens were given the right, or better yet, the obligation, to take down any poster or tarp that is put up anywhere outside the official poster areas, before or after the official campaign period, we should be able to crowdsource the removal of all these illegal eyesores. If you come to think of it, the volunteer manpower is just there, ready and willing. All we are asking for is the authority to do it, and if government can give us that, we can outnumber and keep pace with the installation and replacement teams of the politicians who are hell bent on plastering their names and faces all over our communities.
The easiest way for any town or city to be able to control the proliferation of unauthorized posters is an outright ban on all sorts of posters, whether campaign or commercial, on any public space. Any poster that is put up on any utility post, tree, waiting shed, or any surface that is on public property should get permission and pay fees to a local government office. That should rid our communities of all the unsightly and often overstaying tarpaulin posters that litter our communities, election season or not. Couple such an ordinance with a populace that is all too willing to take down the eyesores, and we can live a poster-free existence, even during the campaign season.
The problem is that our public officials, who are primarily politicians and public servants only coincidentally, do not want our communities to be poster-free because it doesn’t serve their selfish interests. That is why there are blatant loopholes and still they do nothing, leaving us with the ugliness and trash that the tarpaulin printing industry generates in conjunction with dirty politics.
Is this something we will just have to live with, or is it something we can still do something about?*
