Elections add to drought disaster

KORONADAL CITY—A ban on local government officials distributing aid during a calamity that coincides with an election period is being drawn into the spotlight following the bloody dismantling of a road blockade in Kidapawan City that farmers set up to demand food to tide them over as El Niño continues to destroy crops and bring farming communities to the brink of starvation.

The ban, which authors of the Omnibus Election Code designed to prevent elected officials from using government resources for their campaign, is emerging as the biggest reason that local government units could use to wiggle themselves out of the blame game that is now playing around the hardships that millions of farmers and their families are now suffering as a result of El Niño.

The tragedy that looms as a result of the drought, however, could also offer an excuse for politicians to defy the ban and make their presence felt and seen in efforts to ease the suffering of drought-hit communities.

A third scenario could be a genuine concern for the welfare of a suffering sector.

Whichever of the three scenarios holds true here, the city government is bent on defying the ban.

“We do not want a repeat of the Kidapawan City experience,” said Cyrus Urbano, action officer of the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (CDRRMC).

Urbano said the city government has yet to get an exemption from the ban from the Commission on Elections (Comelec), but it could no longer wait for it before food is distributed to more than 3,500 farming families suffering from the drought in the city.

“We are taking a risk [for defying the ban],” Urbano said. All 27 villages of the city would get food packs, he said.

According to the election code, local governments should let the Department of Social Welfare and Development, with supervision from the Commission on Audit, distribute relief goods during calamities that coincide with an election period.

“No candidate or his or her spouse or member of his family within the second civil degree of affinity or consanguinity shall participate, directly or indirectly, in the distribution of any relief or other goods to victims of the calamity or disaster,” the Omnibus Election Code said.

Urbano said the city government had long asked for an exemption but the Comelec has not acted on the request.

“We have been asking for exemption as our people are getting hungry. We will no longer wait for our farmers to go to the streets and demand food,” he said.

“We can no longer wait, we do not want the Kidapawan experience to happen here. We can no longer wait for the Comelec certification we sought since January. We must act now before our people die of hunger,” Urbano said.

Last week, at least 6,000 El Niño-hit farmers set up a blockade on portion of a major highway in Kidapawan City demanding rice from the provincial government of North Cotabato.

The blockade prevented vehicles from passing through the highway and lasted for at least two days before police moved in and dismantled the barricade in an operation that turned bloody, killing at least two farmers and wounding 100 protesters and policemen.

South Cotabato Gov. Daisy Avance Fuentes said provincial officials also sought exemption from the Comelec to bring aid directly to some 9,000 drought-hit farmers.

Fuentes said while the provincial government has sufficient funds for the aid, distribution could not start without Comelec approval.

The provincial government has declared a state of calamity. “Our farmers’ situation is alarming,” Fuentes said.

Danilo Supe, South Cotabato provincial administrator, said the process of acquiring an exemption from the ban “is a very tedious and long process that could take us until after the elections to complete.” Edwin Fernandez, Inquirer Mindanao