The Commission on Elections has reminded those wishing to seek elective positions in the May 14 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections not to engage in premature campaigning. That, of course, is a good one, a really big ha ha. But if the Comelec isn't trying to be funny, then it must be so hopelessly out of touch it did not know that likely candidates have been campaigning long ago.
Perhaps the problem is that Comelec is being too technical, such that campaigning is reduced to the actual act of, say, an aspirant shaking the hand of someone and asking that someone to remember him when election time comes. But man is an ingenious creature, quite capable of doing something without actually doing it. Unless the Comelec gets out of its box of technicalities, it will never be freed from its own trap.
Even its own rules leave ample room for them to be violated, ignored or run rings around. Take for example the very rule that touches on the subject of early campaigning. According to the rule, the registration period for the upcoming May 14 polls is April 14 to April 20 while the campaign period is set to start on May 4. Based on its own previous rulings, an aspirant is not considered a candidate until he files his certificate of candidacy.
What this means is that, from the time he was born until he is old enough to be qualified as a candidate and registers himself as such anytime between April 14 and April 20, 2018, an aspirant can do all the early campaigning he can and not be penalized or anything. Because under the rules, a candidate is not a candidate until he registers. Any early campaigning he does is not early campaigning because he is not yet a candidate unless he registers.
Strangely enough, once an aspirant is finally registered, the Comelec promptly bars him from campaigning, because the poll body says the campaign period does not start until May 4. For the Comelec not to just make the campaign period coincide with the date of registration only makes things complicated for its own self. In the end, aspirants delay registering until the last day to avoid becoming official candidates subject to early campaigning rules, thereby clogging up the process.
There is something Catch-22ish in these Comelec rules. An aspirant can do all the early campaigning he wants provided he is not yet registered as a candidate. But once he is registered as a candidate, he can no longer do any campaigning because the Comelec says not yet. Rules such as these do not inspire order, discipline, and compliance. On the contrary, they give rise to ingenious and crafty means of circumvention and disguise which later on, when applied in office by successful aspirants, become handy tools for much of the corruption we see around. To a certain extent, the inspiration is sprung by the Comelec itself.