MANILA: Spare the cemeteries. This was the appeal of Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Sixto Brillantes to those running in 2013 who are expected to put up streamers and posters in memorial parks in observance of All Saints’ and All Souls’ days next week. “They can always take advantage of the fact that there is no premature campaigning. We don’t have a law. So I always address this to the conscience of our candidates,” he said.
Brillantes said prospective candidates should not do any direct or indirect campaigning in cemetery premises in deference to the dead and their loved ones.
He also appealed to the public and civil society groups to be vigilant against those who will take advantage of the occasion to campaign. “Let’s see if the cemeteries will not be filled with tarpaulins. I think it will be better if we take pictures of these streamers and posters. Remember them and on election day don’t vote for them,” he said. The poll chief also reiterated his appeal to the media not to become a tool of candidates in campaigning.
“Without the media, they would not have exposures. What I’m saying is don’t take advantage of others who cannot afford it. I’m appealing to the media not to invite them because they are given exposures,” he said.
The Philippine star
Mayor shot dead
in eastern Bicol
MANILA: A town mayor belonging to Philippine President Benigno Aquino’s political party has been shot dead by unidentified attackers, police said yesterday.
Raul Matamorosa, mayor of Lupi town in the eastern region of Bicol, was having a television repaired in a shop when he was shot in the head by a man accompanied by two accomplices Saturday, police said.
Matamorosa, a member of Aquino’s Liberal Party, was rushed to hospital where he later died.
Police said the motive for the killing was still unknown, although revenge killings linked to politics are common in the Philippines. Aquino’s spokesmen were not immediately available for comment.
In April 2011 another Liberal Party member, Reynaldo Uy, a mayor in the central Philippines, was slain in an ambush. His killers remain at large.
Matamorosa’s killing came seven months before local elections, when politically related violence is expected to reach its peak.
AFP
