Put up more poster areas for partylist groups, COMELEC urged
The Kabataan Partylist today made an appeal to the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) to put up more poster areas for partylist groups.
“COMELEC should give more consideration to partylist groups and put up more poster areas to accommodate marginalized political parties and organizations,” Kabataan Partylist president Raymond Palatino said.
“COMELEC’s common poster areas are inadequate and mostly are inaccessible from public view. Many of the identified poster walls are yet to be constructed or were not designed for such purpose. We are even appalled to discover that there are designated poster areas which are supposed to be present in non-existent streets or places such as the basketball court along Quirino Highway in Novaliches proper which was already transformed into an open park few years ago.”
“The lack or absence of common poster areas is a clear disadvantage for marginalized partylist groups which rely on poster propaganda. Unlike the major political parties which have unlimited resources to support their advertisement in TV or radio, our group puts a lot of weight in posters in our campaign propaganda,” he pointed out.
Palatino added that major political parties eat up almost all the space in COMELEC poster areas leaving small or no space at all for the numerous partylist groups.
“We urge COMELEC to fulfill its mandate to set-up more poster areas and hasten the construction of poster walls. It should also allot more space for party-list groups while regulate the slot for major political parties.”
“The Fair Elections Act should level the playing field for all political parties by ensuring that small political groups with limited funds is given ‘equal opportunity’ to campaign and be known by the public,” he emphasized.