Comelec urges candidates to focus on platforms, avoid mudslinging

 

BAGUIO CITY – The Commission on Elections (Comelec)-Baguio has called on candidates in the upcoming elections to focus their campaign on their platform and avoid mudslinging.  

“We urge our politicians to have a campaign that promotes themselves and what the voters can benefit in choosing them rather than throwing stones at other candidates to lift one’s name,” lawyer John Paul Martin, Comelec-Baguio officer, said in a phone interview on Thursday.

He said many voters do not want to hear mudslinging but rather, what the candidates can do and offer to the public once they are elected into office.    

“Mas gusto na ng mga voters na marinig ang magagandang plano at hindi paninira sa kapwa kandidato (Voters prefer to hear good plans and not damaging statements against fellow candidates),” he added.

Martin said that after the election, politicians, whether they win or not, are all from the small community of Baguio and will bump into each other, thus it is better to campaign without damaging the reputation of their opponents.  

“We do not even know, they might even be relatives by blood or affinity and by destroying their fellow candidates, they might cause the split of family members, which is not the purpose of the election,” he said.

Martin said many, if not most of the voters, have evolved to be thinking and intelligent voters who are pro-development