The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Tuesday announced that it would start issuing notices to remove illegal campaign materials of candidates running for national positions on Wednesday as part of its “Oplan Baklas.”
In a forum in Manila, Comelec Chairperson George Garcia said sanctions await winning senatorial candidates and party-list groups in the May 12 polls who would ignore these notices.
“There are about 7,500 issues of show cause orders and non-proclamation of winners in barangay (elections). So if they want to suffer the same fate, it’s okay, don’t remove illegal campaign materials,” he said, referring to the candidates in the 2023 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan who were sanctioned for the same offense.
“We have already announced the addresses of the candidates’ headquarters so that the letters will be forwarded there.”
Aspirants and party-list organizations are given three days to remove their illegally posted campaign materials.
“If they will not remove (these campaign materials) in three days, we will sue them. We will just write them a letter of disqualification due to election offense, one to six years imprisonment,” Garcia said.
He added that they would no longer accept the reason that the questioned posters or campaign materials were posted or produced by their political rivals.
“We will always presume that the face on the posters, we will presume that they put it up. Therefore, we will issue them with show cause orders and then the notice to remove campaign materials,” Garcia said.
“We can suspend the proclamation, and even if they assume (office), we can remove them. We have removed governors, city mayors because we saw that there was a violation of the election laws.”
He also called on the public to flood them with pictures of illegal campaign posters through their social media accounts so the Comelec could inform its local poll body offices and take action.
Considered unlawful campaign materials are individual posters, billboards, posters, and tarpaulins exceeding 2 ft. by 3 ft.; collage-like posters exceeding 2 ft. by 3 ft.; and posters with single letters of names, when assembled to form a size exceeding 2 ft. by 3 ft.
Also prohibited are campaign materials that are not in designated common poster areas, which are plazas, markets, barangay centers, and similar places, where posters may be readily seen or read and with the heaviest pedestrian and/or vehicular traffic in the city or municipality.
First day
Garcia also reported that they collected so many paper materials on the first day of the campaign period for national positions.
“The Comelec has collected so many papers today that we cannot destroy or we will be violating election laws. We will properly account what we have collected and dissolve them per region or province,” he said.
He described the first day of the campaign for national positions as “very good,” noting that there were no huge banners along EDSA and other major thoroughfares.
The campaign period for senatorial bets and party-list groups will end on May 10. (PNA)
