Personnel of Oplan Baklas take down an oversized billboard of a candidate. Image from Comelec / Facebook
MANILA, Philippines — Commission on Elections (Comelec) Director and spokesperson James Jimenez on Friday said that murals are “technically not included” as it is “at least not mentioned” in the guidelines for “Oplan Baklas,” the poll body’s drive against illegally-sized and -placed campaign materials.
“Hindi ‘yan technically kasama or at least hindi nabanggit ang murals sa ating (That is technically not included or at least mentioned in our) resolution, and again that might be one of the areas we’d have to look [at] again,” Jimenez said in an interview with CNN Philippines’ The Source.
In Echague, Isabela, men in military uniform were seen guarding a man coating a streetside mural for Vice President Leni Robredo, who is running for president in the May elections, and her running mate, Senator Francis Pangilinan, who is running for vice president, with white paint.
According to Jimenez, authorities have secured consent from the owner of the property to paint over the mural.
“There was consent doon sa ginawa eh. Nagpaalam po ang Comelec official na tatanggalin ‘yung mural na iyon, and in fact we do have a video of the property owner saying na pwede bang pink na lang ang ilagay ninyo. So there was consent,” he said.
(There was consent in what we did. The Comelec official asked for permission to paint over that mural, and in fact, we have a video of the property owner asking if we can use pink in painting it over. So there was consent.)
“Again, ultimately that’s all we have going forward, that there was consent on this, but again technically speaking it is not part of our resolution,” he added.
Jimenez said the election officer in the concerned area might have believed that the mural should be treated the same as oversized posters.
“The mural was one of the things encountered during the walkabout where they saw a lot of illegally posted materials. Of course, the mural itself looked like it acted as a poster. The only difference was that the medium was different and that the medium again was technically not mentioned specifically in the resolution,” he said.
“As far as the election officer was concerned, it deserved the same treatment, and so gave it the same treatment, again subject to the consent of the property owner,” Jimenez noted.