Comelec to censor news, ‘for fair polls’

Barangay councilmen have sued their Eastern Samar mayor before for deforesting coastal mangroves. Charged with graft and grave abuse of authority was Mayor Annaliza Gonzales-Kwan of Guiuan town. Co-accused was private contractor Cosme Tiu Sonco of Al’s Enterprise & Construction. Allegedly they decimated one of the barangay’s sources of food and livelihood, to give way to a resettlement.

The barangay men said Gonzales-Kwan had no environment compliance certificate for the housing site. Too, she defied their plea and an injunction of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to save the mangroves. The National Housing Authority had not even approved the project. The mangroves, in a marine reserve, host shellfish and other seafood that poor folk gather for food and handicraft material.

To show conspiracy, the accusers traced the landfill purchased for the foreshore to a lot only recently acquired by two brothers of Gonzales-Kwan. Allegedly the mayor gave the contract to Tiu Sonco, whose son is her political ally.

Illegal mining and consequent river pollution also plague Guiuan’s historic Homonhon and Manicani Islands.

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The senators are halting their bickering over multimillion-peso Christmas bonuses because they are to host from today to Saturday an international conference against corruption. It would be unseemly to fight over money in front of neighbors invited to dinner, they chorused.

But, truth is, the 429 visiting parliamentarians from 76 countries already know what’s happening. Their embassies have briefed them about the senators’ fighting over the spoils: public funds. The hundred million Filipinos know too what they’ve called each other: briber, bribee, greedy hypocrite, ingrate, attack dog, crusading crook, fence-sitter.

The only thing left unstated is how the senators have been using taxpayers’ money all these years. For, their liquidation of multimillion-peso expenses has not been with official receipts but mere certifications.

Necessary thus is a review by independent private bodies, not the co-opted Commission on Audit.

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In the name of fair elections the Comelec has 29-page guidelines for the February 11-May 11 campaigning. Violating candidates and entities face imprisonment of one to six years, disqualification from public office, and bar from suffrage. Political parties may be fined at least P10,000.

At least two sections stand out as examples of the poll body’s failure to consult stakeholders:

• Section 9 dwells on “election propaganda through the mass media.” For parity in exposure and spending, it limits campaign ads. That is, 120 minutes in television and 180 in radio per national candidate, 60 and 90 per local one. Fine.

The section deems as not election propaganda the appearance and guesting of candidates in bona fide newscasts and interviews. This is, news documentaries or on-the-spot coverage, even of party conventions. Fine again.

But then comes the kicker. For such appearance or guesting to be treated as genuine news, the broadcast station must secure the Comelec’s prior approval. Too, that rival candidates and parties were afforded equal time. Absurd!

Imagine this scenario. Fire engulfs a mall and the owner, who happens to be running for mayor, rushes to the scene. For TV news to air him live, the station must first get Comelec consent. His contenders must be put on air too, lest the TV crew be jailed and barred from voting.

• The same section limits online propaganda. Size is by pixels and aspect ratios; frequency shall be no more than thrice a week per website; duration must be within a 24-hour period. How the Comelec or parties would monitor the hundreds of thousands of Internet websites could qualify as a modern-day miracle.

Foresee another scenario. A sly candidate puts oversized ads of his rival on a website, keeps it there for weeks on end, then cries for disqualification. Would the Comelec be able to determine the frame-up?

• Section 25 requires candidates to remove prohibited propaganda materials before the start of the campaign. Such prohibited materials include “names, images, logos, brands, insignias, color motifs, initials, and other forms of identifiable graphical representations placed by incumbent officials on any public structures or places.”

It’s obviously intended to defang the “epal” (self-promoting, credit-grabbing, limelight hogging) politico. The mayor running for reelection must tear down his tarpaulins congratulating the graduates, and paint over his initials on basketball boards.

But what if the materials are much bigger, costlier, or deeper set to just tear down? Like, an entire hospital painted blue inside and out, the epal mayor’s campaign color. Or his initials meshed into the steel braces, stairs, and handrails of the pedestrian overpass. The patients will be relocated for the repainting, and the multimillion-peso bridge demolished, right?

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Laugh your head off. Catch “Boeing, Boeing,” the 1965 French sex-comedy that, adapted for Broadway in 2008, instantly won the Tony. Weekends till Feb. 17, at Onstage, Greenbelt-1, Makati City.

A playboy juggles his time among three girlfriends, international flight attendants all, keeping strict track of their arrival/departure skeds in Paris. The smooth set-up goes haywire when the girls get promoted to faster Boeing aircraft, a boyhood pal comes to visit, and the housekeeper quits.

Repertory Philippines’ Miguel Faustman directs the fast-pacing cast: David Bianco, Topper Fabregas, Giannina Ocampo, Carla Dunareanu, Jen Bianco, and come-backing (from short retirement) Baby Barredo.

For tickets and details: call (02) 5716926, 5714941, or Ticket World (02) 8919999; or e-mail [email protected]; or visit www.repertory.ph.

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

E-mail: [email protected]