MANILA, Philippines?The Akbayan party list was one of the early birds in the campaign season, kicking off its party-list candidacy with a 7 a.m. sortie in one of Quezon City's urban poor communities on Tuesday.

Its supporters and nominees chose to forego the traditional motorcades and poster-plastering that usually occupied other parties' time during the first day of the campaign season.

Instead, the group gathered residents of a depressed area in Tatalon, schooled them on the intricacies of voting in the country's first automated elections, and led them in an oath-taking where they vowed to choose wisely and protect their votes.

?We want to start the campaign early and fresh. We also want to open it in a non-traditional way,? Akabayn Rep. Walden Bello said.

Akbayan also entertained the audience with songs doubling as social commentary, performed by well-known singer Noel Cabangon and the group Crazy as Pinoy, even as former Akbayan Rep. Etta Rosales cautioned voters against being lured by candidates' catchy jingles.

Rosales warned that the candidates who have been spending a lot on jingles, usually part and parcel of glossy TV and radio advertisements, could later on take back the money from the voters' taxes.

Akbayan also introduced its six nominees: Bello, Arlene Bag-ao, Tom Villarin, Ellene Sana, Francis Isaac and Ruperto Aleroza. Villarin was not at the event, because he was in Mindanao.

Akbayan's senatorial candidate, Risa Hontiveros, was not present because she was with the Liberal Party in Tarlac. Hontiveros is a guest candidate of the Liberal Party.