EDITORIAL – Delicadeza and elections

ONE significant fact in the current election season is that a candidate is free to mount an electoral campaign starting from the time he filed his certificate of candidacy early this month up to Election Day, May 10, 2013 without being charged with premature campaigning.
A Supreme Court ruling bars the Commission on Elections from running after candidates who conduct premature or indirect campaigning, that’s why.
Yes, siree, there is no law making premature campaigning an election offense. Seemingly justifying its helplessness, Comelec itself  holds the view that promoting themselves forms part of the candidate’s freedom of expression. Neat.  Now comes Comelec Chairman  Sixto Brillantes saying he’s hoping delicadeza would prevent candidates from engaging in premature campaigning. If not pathetic, ridiculous is the word appropriate to describe this situation.
Delicadeza, which is the popular Hispanic equivalent of good manners, has long been erased from the vocabulary of most  politicians, as can be gleaned from the epidemic called  “dynastism” afflicting Philippine politics down to the barangay levels.
Without delicadeza, candidates will spend more in campaigning until E-day. The bigger  their expenses, the more money they have to recover after elections. As to how, we can think of a thousand creative ways as we know them in the crocodile-infested jungle called politics. But one thing we can be sure of— it is not along the Aquino Administration’s popular  slogan “daang matuwid,” if we know what it means.