From Comelec to Omelec

By Al S. Mendoza

 

HERE we go again.

Posters nailed/hung by candidates in unauthorized spots have been ordered removed by Comelec.

What are unauthorized spots but government properties?

But are electric posts and electric wires government properties?

Aren’t they owned by Meralco or cooperative electric outfits in the provinces?

Gosh, it will be repeated again and again.

What do I mean?

This cops-and-robbers scenario in the run-up to the May 9 elections.

Comelec men always on the go to tear up candidates’ posters that, by Comelec’s reckoning, are tucked illegally.

Now come to think of it.

Has there been even a single candidate jailed for violation of this law?

None that I know of.

There is but one candidate found guilty of overspending some time ago:  Gov. Ejercito of Laguna.

But how many others had been guilty of overspending since free elections started in post-Edsa ’86?

None that I know of.

Our election laws have been that stupid since Day One.

That is why every election year, they are violated left and right.

Yet, up to this day, such laws remained, have never been even revised to cope with the times.

There are even laws on how radio/TV ads are to be aired/shown.

But again, no one ever follows the rules, which are, in the first place, crafted in idiotic manner.

For example, why deprive a radio/TV station from earning money in a fair and free market?

Why there is even a limit to campaign spending is crazy.

What’s wrong with a radio/TV station raking it in?

This is a free country, where business is legal between contracting parties fully aware of their rights and in adherence of the law of commerce thereat.

And if one has the money to spend, why stop him from doing so?

That’s his money in the first place, not Comelec’s.

Ah, that gun ban, too.

It’s been in place even before official campaigning began on February 9.

But look.  People get killed by gunmen almost daily.

The Comelec is to blame:  It doesn’t have forces trained to enforce its laws.

The posters and streamers will continue to hound us up to May because we are a nation of law-breakers.

And we are a nation of law-breakers because we are also a nation that never cares that much about enforcing the law.

But then, again:  How can the Comelec enforce its own laws when it doesn’t have the manpower to do it?

How can the Comelec apprehend violators when it doesn’t have apprehenders trained to arrest law-breakers?

The Comelec doesn’t even have enough poll watchers, relying on volunteers to help make election day a success—to a certain degree, that is.

Enough of this Comelec hypocrisy.

It doesn’t even have the tiger teeth to implement its own ruling on Grace Poe—the Supreme Court, in most times, messing up its decisions with impunity.

From now on, the Comelec had better be called Omelec—Omission of Election.

Happy Valentine!

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