TUESDAY WAS THE FIRST DAY of the official campaign period and most of the news was about how the candidates were breaking the law. Even in the early morning hours, there were already reports of police nabbing groups of men caught defacing walls, bridges and any fixed spot imaginable with posters of candidates.
Later that morning, there was a story about how the party-list group Agham, led by veteran radio man Angelo Palmones, were tearing down posters and placards from trees along Agham Road, where they were to hold their proclamation rally. The difference was that the Agham leaders were tearing down their own campaign paraphernalia, which Palmones said had been attached to trees along the street without their knowledge. ?I want to appeal to everyone to please spare the trees because they have nothing to do with the elections,? he said.
This is a thought echoed by the Earth Day Network Philippines (EDNP) which issued a statement reminding candidates ?that they must show that they are law-abiding citizens in the first place.? As Bebet Gozun pointedly asked: ?How can they effectively lead when they have no moral ascendancy??
Earth Day Network reminds all candidates and the public that there is a law, PD 953, issued in 1976 that prohibits the destruction, damaging and injuring of trees. ?Yet so many politicians, even those who claim to have environment high on their agenda, nail their posters and other election paraphernalia on trees.?
Such ?wounds,? the group says, could be the entry point for infection which could lead to further harm or even eventually kill the trees. The Network, together with RM Awardee Tony Oposa of the Law of Nature Foundation and other ?green? lawyers all over the country, is set to file cases against violators.
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EARTH DAY Network adds that it is strongly supporting the ?Basura-Free Elections? campaign of the National Solid Waste Management Commission of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, calling on ?all aspiring leaders, national or local, to make sure that it is going to be a clean election both politically and environmentally. Responsible candidates should only post their posters in Comelec-designated areas. If not, then once again, they are simply showing us that they (have no hesitation about) breaking the law.?
Noting that every election year ?the country is deluged with posters, banners and pamphlets that leave piles of garbage in their wake,? Voltaire Alferez, EDNP executive director, said it saddens him that ?politicians think they are above everyone else and forget that they are actually servants of LAHAT??an acronym for lupa (earth), araw (sun), hangin (wind), ako (myself) and tubig (water).
The Network calls on each and every Filipino to ?not only choose a candidate based on what he promises to do but by how he is already doing it during the campaign?a wasteful candidate who disregards the environment around is not worthy of our trust. It?s about time that we vote Earth!?
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INDEED, if a candidate cannot bring herself or himself to obey the law and respect the environment during a campaign, how can we expect that candidate to do the same when he or she is elected into office?
Perhaps the crucial test starts now, when we can start weighing a candidate?s desire to win against that same candidate?s principles and ethics?at least as articulated in public statements.
It?s not only character that we must judge nowadays as the campaign gets off the ground. We must also begin to look at performance, not just in their stints in government, but also during their campaigns.
Environmentalists look particularly at the way candidates and parties obey the law and respect nature, primarily by minimizing the trash that is typically generated in the course of a campaign. Others may wield other checklists: support for and public behavior towards women; proposed policies for the business sector, the education sector, the health sector, the urban poor, etc.; as well as personal ethics and background.
Now is the time to draw up a personal checklist to use in evaluating a candidate?s fitness for office, and to consult that checklist as the race heats up.
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FOR the Valentine?s Day episode of her cable TV show ?Nun-sense,? Sr. Mary John Mananzan, prioress of the Benedictine nuns in St. Scholastica, invited my husband and me to talk about our marriage.
As she told me when she extended her invitation, Sr. Mary John wanted to show that ?feminists can have good marriages,? and that marriages in which one partner (or even both partners) happens to be feminist can stand the test of time and adversity. Should I have been flattered that she thought our relationship a model of such a marriage?
Anyway, the taping of ?Nun-sense? proved to be a lot of fun. Sr. Mary John proved to be a ?natural? and is one of the most relaxed TV hosts I have encountered in quite a while. Maybe it?s also because the topics she chooses for her shows are quite familiar to her, and for the initial shows at least, she has had as guests good friends and colleagues, who are legion.
For the first ?Nun-sense,? Sr. Mary John looked into the history of the feminist movement in the Philippines, inviting among others Ging Quintos Deles, who with Sr. Mary John is one of four ?founding mothers? of the women?s group Pilipina. We were her guests for the second show, along with Emmy Villar, a psychologist and relationship counselor; Brian, who was one of the first graduates of the course on gender orientation for men; and Princess, a St. Scho graduate who works for Radio Veritas and was there to give the ?single lady?s? take on love in these challenging times.
?Nun-sense? airs at 9 p.m. on Saturdays over Destiny Cable. A TV star is born!
