An official of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said prospective candidates have the moral obligation to refrain from premature campaigning and early campaign spending.
"People, who themselves have declared - either through their words or actions - their intention to stand for election next year, have a stricter moral obligation to refrain from premature campaigning and early campaign spending," Comelec Spokesman James Jimenez said on Twitter Thursday, June 3.
He added that the said "candidates" should also not tolerate those who do that for them.
Jimenez said even the voters also have the power to stop such activities.
"They have simply learned that the easiest path to victory is by breaking the rules. We should, therefore, try our hardest to correct that notion, and stop rewarding them for bad behavior," he said.
Based on Republic Act 9369 or the Poll Automation Law “any person who files his certificate of candidacy (COC) shall only be considered as a candidate at the start of the campaign period” and that “unlawful acts applicable to a candidate shall be in effect only upon that start of the campaign period.”
This provision was affirmed by the 2009 Supreme Court case of Penera vs. Comelec, which paved the way for the removal of premature campaigning as an election offense.
On June 2, Kontra Daya encouraged all advocates of clean, honest and transparent elections to report any forms of election fraud such as tarpaulins, billboards, flyers and other media prominently displaying the names and/or pictures of politicians; sign-up drives urging certain politicians to run; text messages from anonymous numbers purportedly on behalf of certain politicians; political surveys being conducted by LGUs or fly-by-night organizations; meetings, rallies or distribution of relief goods organized by certain groups in support of a politician; red-tagging of certain personalities, politicians or party-list groups and other forms of early negative campaigning; police and military operations against certain individuals and groups aimed to besmirch progressive politicians or party-list groups; and other activities with a clear intent to get support in the 2022 elections or to negatively portray perceived opponents.
Those who have information are urged to do the following: take a photo or video of an event using your phone's camera; take note of the time, date and place where the event happened; give a brief description of the event; send the photo/video, timestamp and description to Kontra Daya via email (kontradaya@gmailcom), Twitter (@kontradaya) or Facebook (kontra.daya).