EDITORIAL - Another of Brillantes' brilliant plans

There seems to be no end to the brilliant ideas of Comelec chairman Sixto Brillantes. After failing to control campaign spending violations (a problem he himself created), Brillantes now wants to abolish campaign periods altogether.

According to Brillantes, campaigning outside the campaign period cannot be controlled, so it would be better if the campaign period itself is abolished. That way, the only time a person can campaign (and be monitored by the Comelec) is when he becomes a candidate by filing his certificate of candidacy.

The logic of the idea, as far as monitoring campaign expenses, might actually work. The only drawback is that politicians being what they are, they are not likely to file their certificates of candidacy (when they can start to be monitored) until at the very last minute.

When that time comes, there will be a deluge of filers, probably the entire political cast of a whole election, converging at all Comelec offices nationwide. Wonder if the Comelec will be able to handle such a situation when that happens.

This brings us back to why the Comelec wanted to regulate campaigning and campaign expenses in the first place. The Comelec should never have regulated campaigns and all its nuances because it cannot pretend to rise above and be better than what the Constitution itself mandates.

The Constitution, the most basic and sacred law in all the land, in keeping with the democratic ideals enshrined within its pages, has opened up electoral representation to the widest of all popular possibilities. This is the reason for its minimalist requirements that, sadly, the Comelec has coopted and corrupted.

The spirit of the Constitution allows the chance for almost everybody to aspire for public office, knowing that aspiring is different from winning, and that the latter is a matter subject to the wisdom of the nation's constituency.

Yet the Comelec, particularly under Brillantes, wants to screen candidacies such that only those "who can mount a credible campaign" or those with money to spend for his election can aspire for public office. But then Brillantes and his Comelec contradict themselves by restricting how much a candidate can spend.

How stupid that a person is allowed to be a candidate only if he has money to spend, and then when he is approved as a candidate, cannot spend as much as he wishes. Even more stupid is telling a candidate when to start spending. Then, failing in all that, Brillantes now wants the campaign period scrapped. What a man.