Punchline
Disqualified for illegal postering?
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
MANY of the local candidates whose posters and billboards were dismantled, torn and pulled down by Comelec last week may not still be losing sleep even knowing that they already saw at least more than P200,000 in printing costs of paper, tarpaulins, mini-billboards have already been blown away uselessly.
Perhaps until Comelec decides it will go back to its old ways of being a ningas cogon, these candidates will not realize that they were foolish to think that they can ignore Comelec’s warning of a strict enforcement of the rule on campaign posters.
In fact, many candidates in other provinces where Comelec supervisors are firmer in their advocacy that Comelec cannot and should not be ignored, have already been read the riot act! Formal notices of their violations and the risks they face for being charged in court for violating the Fair Elections Act have been sent to them, including their possible disqualification, and the estimated costs of the confiscated materials that will be added to the penalties!
Here’s how one stern-looking Comelec supervisor tells it: “The convenient excuse offered by candidates that they had no control nor knowledge of what his supporters had done, is not considered valid. Candidates, he said, can direct a team of their own to dismantle, tear or bring down illegally positioned posters and oversized posters.
We have already learned of a candidate who won the election only to be disqualified because of an “honest mistake” in computing campaign expenditures.
Now it will only take an official complaint filed by one’s opponent supported by pictures and other documents that prove illegal postering that will serve as basis for the disqualification or suspension of proclamation of a winning candidate.
So will we soon see a candidate who wins an election convincingly only to be disqualified because of illegal postering? I hope not but it appears the possibility is greater than before. All one needs to do is to see which candidates continue to violate the law and you will know who the prospective candidates for disqualification are.
Back home, will we see a number of candidates in Pangasinan disqualified because of mindless illegal postering? I sure hope not!
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BEYOND THE MEDALS AND TROPHIES. It is encouraging to see the Dagupan City government investing in our young in sports development.
Other local governments may have myopic view of promoting sports development among the young because the benefits are not immediately measurable, specifically, that it does not improve lives of athletes.
Still other LGUs do not get any satisfaction when local athletes reap honors for the town because these don’t add up to the prestige of the town officials.
What these LGUs fail to see is that team or individual sports greatly contribute to the molding of the character in people. A disciplined and competitive athlete learns to think for himself/herself, to plan in order to get ahead. The athlete learns how to build stamina in order to endure physical strains on the body.
This is one education that one doesn’t learn from the books.
If Mayor Belen, keeps up with her sports program that’s committed to the full development of the city’s young athletes, the city can look forward to more enterprising and proactive citizens helping build better communities in years ahead.
So if local successful business companies are looking for a way to give back to the community, sports development program is one way that works wonders for the community.
Meanwhile, parents can help make a difference in their children’s future by enrolling them in the city’s summer sports clinic! That’s guaranteed!
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SAVING A LIFE. Perhaps, if the city government in the 50s and 60s had organized and sponsored free swimming clinic for kids, perhaps my youngest sister would be alive today.
Unknown to many, our youngest sibling Karina, drowned at the Blue Beach (now known as Tondaligan) at age 12 last November 1, 1963. She was swept away by a strong under-current and huge waves and she didn’t know how to swim or stay afloat. A visitor drowned with her that day. I, too, almost drowned when I rushed to pull her out to the shore only to be swept myself. I was 15.
But I was fortunate to have been given brief swimming lessons in Manila while vacationing there before the accident happened. I learned to back float long enough to enable a fisherman to reach me and pull me out as I began to sink myself. Yes, I’m in my second lease on life.
My point is, we should never take a lesson in any sport for granted. It could save one’s life, your child’s life, even your own. Yes, consider your child saving you because he/she had the training you provided one summer.
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TOURISM AS A SCIENCE. It’s fun time in Pangasinan!
Lingayen has its Pista’y Dayat while Dagupan just kicked off its Bangus Festival!
The province practically hosts a water/picnic resort in every town, and there are festivals, and more festivals to join every summer.
At this time of the year, perhaps it can be said only Pangasinenses have the privilege of soaking in the summer fun, the political excitement and business peak month all rolled into one! The mood all over is distinctly exciting and full of enthusiasm. And with the completion of TPLex that exits in Urdaneta, we can expect more visitors arriving faster and more.
Now, there’s the opportunity that local governments should take advantage of and exploit. The expected increase in influx of visitors is the best time to conduct a research on preferences of today’s tourists. The preferences of domestic tourists 10 years ago have already changed. If local governments wish to cash in on tourism as an industry, they must know that there is now a science that can be applied to ensure the success of a tourism industry.
What cannot work is to believe that one activity is enough to lure visitors to spend leisure money. Tourism industry needs a total approach – from local government support legislation to private investments, from planning promotions to building infrastructures, from health and sanitation rules to traffic management, from environmental concerns to promotion of one-town-one product, from leisure activities to clean and comfortable accommodations, etc.
Believe you me, only a grounded research on tourists’ preferences can safely guarantee a fair return on investments in tourism.
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ASK DUTERTE. There is one message that’s standing out from the political din and noise being touted by every politician worth his/her salt.
It’s the one that says: “I hate drugs!”
And the messages that are quickly lost are the half-hearted efforts to join the bandwagon by simply mouthing concerns about drugs and criminality, and little else. Understandably, they don’t hate drugs because they don’t understand the myriad of problems created by illegal drugs. They cannot hate drugs because they don’t know how to solve it.
It takes one to hate drugs to know and understand the problems and the solutions that will work. Ask Duterte. Ask Cayetano.
(For your comments and reactions, please email to: punch.sunday@gmail.com)
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