NOTE: THIS STORY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE BOHOL CHRONICLE’S SUNDAY PRINT EDITION.
Reelectionists and neophyte candidates for the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) 2023 have started wooing voters during the campaign period which will end up a day before election day on October 30.
The campaign took many forms. In Tagbilaran City, the candidates started hanging up their campaign materials in tarpaulins with their names and faces in private fences and properties and some flooded the social media platforms.
The Comelec has already warned the candidates to follow the prescribed size of campaign materials and avoid placing them outside the designated poster areas. For doing so it’s an election offense.
Others did the “ricoreda,” playing their respective jingles, some of those (jingles) are sound clips from popular songs in mounted speakers of their private vehicles roaming around. It was not known immediately if they had the permit from song owners to use the latter’s musical composition for their campaign tunes.
Others launched opening salvo in a mini-rally, like in Purok 5, Poblacion, Trinidad, and Bohol. Others planned to conduct a house-to-house campaign.
There are 1,109 barangays in Bohol, corresponding to the number of barangay and SK chairperson positions. And there are 3,291 gunning for the punong barangay and SK chairman.
Unless the figures have changed due to disqualifications, if any, and other causes, there are 1,847 and 1,444 bets for barangay and SK chairman, respectively.
Some 13,759 are running for barangay councilman and 6,736 for SK, the Comelec said.
The Comelec has identified barangays as areas of concern but none is considered a “hot spot” area.
The Comelec is urging voters to exercise their right of suffrage and report any untoward incident along the way, like any vote-buying or vote-selling related activities.
“Voting is a sacred exercise of our democratic rights. Your votes are important, especially since the barangays play a big role in implementing government programs and policies,” DILG Sec. Benhur Abalos said in a report.
It also pushed for no-vote buying and vote-selling dubbed as “Kontra Bigay” drive in a public forum as it did in Candijay and Jagna recently.
The Kontra Bigay in Jagna was attended by the local government unit led by Mayor Joseph Ranola, Vice-Mayor Teofisto Pagar, Bishop Daniel Patrick Parcon and other religious denomination representatives, DILG regional director Leocadio Trovela, provincial director Jerome Gonzales, MLGOO Atty. Anthony Dalida, Col. Jopseh Berondo, who represented provincial director Col Lorenzo Batuan, police chief Major Joseph Lopena, other officials, and more than 600 candidates. (rvo)
