Postpone ‘Oplan Baklas’ – election laywer to Comelec

BACKLASH | A Metropolitan Manila Development Authority worker on Friday tidies up a heap of campaign tarps, banners and posters seized along España Boulevard in Manila as part of the Commission on Elections’ “Oplan Baklas” which has been criticized for violating property and political rights. (Photo by MARIANNE BERMUDEZ / Philippine Daily Inqurier)

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) should suspend its “Oplan Baklas” drive to remove improper campaign materials, veteran election lawyer Romulo Macalintal urged after its spokesperson James Jimenez said the poll body would review the rules on its implementation amid complaints from candidates.

“There really is something wrong in [the] Comelec’s handling of these campaign rules issues,” Macalintal, a member of the legal team of presidential aspirant Vice President Leni Robredo, said in a statement.“It would be advisable for the Comelec to temporarily stop implementing its controversial regulation while reviewing said rules so that it could have a uniform standard and policy for both national and local candidates,” he said.

Pacquiao’s reaction

Presidential candidate Sen. Manny Pacquiao, however, said that candidates should respect the “Oplan Baklas” drive against oversized campaign materials.

In his rounds of several towns in Laguna on Saturday, Pacquiao said he did not see a problem if the banners would be displayed within one’s residence but did not agree if they would be posted in public places.

Another Robredo lawyer, Emil Maranon, complained on Saturday that some Comelec officials did not even know how to implement the poll body’s resolution regulating the size and placement of campaign materials.

Maranon said they were provided copies of notices issued by local election officers to private individuals who were ordered to remove the tarps and posters of Robredo and her running mate, Sen. Francis Pangilinan.

One of the notices, issued by election officer Reyman Solbita of Baguio City, directed a house owner to dismantle the tarp of Robredo for its failure to mention the name and address of its donor.

But Maranon, the former chief of staff of the late Comelec chair Sixto Brillantes Jr., argued that this requirement was only intended for candidates and political parties, not for individuals who voluntarily paid for the printing of campaign paraphernalia without the knowledge of the candidate.

“The proper interpretation of that rule is that if you’re not a candidate, a poster posted in pursuit of one’s support of a candidate is part of that person’s free speech,” Maranon claimed in an interview with the Inquirer.

‘Different standards’

He said Solbita also mentioned in the notice that posters and tarps should mention if these were made from recyclable materials, which was not mentioned in Comelec Resolution No. 10730 that the poll body used as the basis for “Oplan Baklas.”

“This is alarming because we have received a lot of versions (of the notices). It seems that they (local election officers) have their own interpretation and version of notice,” Maranon said.

“This is somewhat scary because if there are different standards being imposed, you start to wonder if they are enforcing the same resolution,” he said.

He said the notice issued by Solbita was different from the similar orders signed by election officers in Paranaque City and Quezon City.

Maranon said while he believed that the supporters of Robredo and Pangilinan were not being singled out in Oplan Baklas, they were the most affected by the clearing operations.

Unlike other presidential candidates, Maranon claimed that Robredo has the most supporters who were paying for their own campaign materials.

—WITH A REPORT FROM JULIE M. AURELIO

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