Punchline
The ‘Posterers’ vs. ‘Baklasers’
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
FINALLY (?), the once inutile Comelec is beginning to show some fangs threatening to shame ‘pasaway’ candidates who blatantly violate its rules applicable to candidates’ propaganda. The question is: will it bite? Or will it remain the docile, submissive entity powerless when the incumbents, or the affluent and well-connected wannabes growl back at its people?
But why even wait for a pasaway candidate to be shamed when it could file criminal cases for their series of violations, and make them stick? Why even spend to have the posters and streamers stricken down when a mere citation by Comelec for violation of the rules will make candidates scamper to remove their own posters? In brief, why can’t Comelec think and act in terms of law enforcement instead of looking ridiculous chasing the political vandals all over the place?
The problem with Comelec’s Oplan Baklas is precisely what the name suggests. Hanggang baklas lang! Obviously it has no intention of imposing criminal or civil sanctions.
Without the legal sanctions, the only value that Oplan Baklas can offer at this point is pure entertainment – to see which side is faster on the draw – the posterers or the baklasers. Another typical cat-and-mouse epic of the government kind!
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Here’s my unsolicited advice to our Comelec’s Mr. Reddy Balarbar: Stop threatening politicos, they eat threats for breakfast so you and many others are beginning to sound like the boy who cried wolf.
Simply start sending a curt notice to the national candidates that reads: “You are in violation of RA 9006, an election offense punishable under the first and second paragraphs of Sec. 264 of the Omnibus Election Code in addition to administrative liability. A case will be filed against you within 48 hours upon receipt of this notice if you fail to remove all your illegally posted materials in the towns of__ .” Then make your teams of baklasers operate simultaneously with the filing of the cases without much fanfare. If you can do as much, you will be putting out hundreds of posterers out of job in no time.
But if such a notice doesn’t jolt the ‘pasaways’ to their senses and promptly begin to do a thorough clean-up in the province, it should be Mr. Balarbar who should feel deeply insulted and shamed. By ignoring him, our politicos are telling us that our Comelec here can be bought to see, hear and say nothing!
Yes, if only our Comelec would talk less, and begin to move decisively, Oplan Baklas will be redundant and needless. But I suspect it would rather not ruffle the big birds’ feathers, hence Oplan Baklas should serve the purpose…a pr solution. Tsk-tsk.
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And before Mr. Balarbar is shamed further when the campaign period for the local elections begin, it would do him some good if he also starts preparing similar notices to be sent to the hundreds of local candidates on March 27, whose photo-shopped faces already vandalize our communities’ surroundings today.
Given the hundreds of letters to be sent and delivered, Comelec can get reliable help from groups of youth volunteers who will happily and zealously help produce and deliver those letters. The Integrated Bar chapters would be ideal partners who can file the cases pronto.
And the local media can be depended upon to carry out the final ‘shame’ stage of the campaign on the pasaways by publishing the cases filed.
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‘HASTY ACTION’ NEEDED. It seems only Urdaneta City Mayor Amadito Perez had the foresight to understand what El Niño could mean to his constituents if no preparation is made. And prepare he did, making the city the only local government likely to survive the El Nino onslaught with little damage.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the product of the inverse equation of El Niño is “no rain equals parched land”, yet most local government units just took the resultant effect for granted and viewed the phenomenon as another indicator of a long hot summer fun season.
The task force formed by Guv. Spines is a wee bit too late but still better late than never. The 200 water pumps the Capitol distributed last Friday gives us hope that all is not lost. He should not spare any more time to launch an aggressive counter-measure in the next few days, i.e., purchase and distribution of at least a thousand water pumps to save our farmlands from total destruction. Failing this, all the monitoring and plotting that the task force is set to do will serve no other purpose but simply as inputs for the next task force that will plan for the next round of El Niño like next year?
Surely the provincial board can see more justification for a “hasty action” allocating funds for this than it did for the shotguns and the nuclear power plant. The resolution, however, should put in the proviso that the pumps (not the shotguns) be properly accounted for by recipients and returned to the provincial government for safe-keeping once the emergency is deemed over.
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WALKING THE TALK. The provincial environment and natural resources office recently issued a set of suggested practical activities for households in the war vs. El Niño:
1) Turn off appliances that are not in use. 2) Make sure that faucets are tightly closed and leaking pipelines are sealed. 3) Collect water used from washing dishes and use it to water plants and vegetable gardens. 4) Segregate your wastes. 5) Don’t burn your garbage because it aggravates pollution in the air. 6) Plant and grow trees in your yard. 7) Walk to your destination if you can, avoid consuming gas needlessly.
Without a doubt, a household that is able to adopt at least 4 of these practices will go a long way towards achieving a sustainable environment in the years ahead.
But what of the PENRO and the Dagupan CENRO? Our people need to see their officials walk the talk about helping conserve and protect our environment as we do our bit.
We would like to hear their account on what they have done specifically about the implementation of the Solid Waste Management Act in the province, the continued operation of open dumpsites in the all towns and cities, the illegal fish pens in the province, pollution of the Lingayen Gulf courtesy of the Dagupan District Jail, the smoke-belching buses and jeepneys, the proliferation of informal settlers along foreshore areas. Have they succeeded in at least one of these perennial problems?
Pray tell, Ms. Wendy Co and, yes, Mr. Raymundo Gayo! What’s the score from your end?
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