Festivity of Political Campaigns
Still Persist
By Francel Salas

Election from the word itself “elect” which means to choose or to vote a righteous person that will lead his country and his people with his intention of further boost the development of the country side. As a democratic country Philippines used to have its election. And now election 2013 is fast approaching, politicians are becoming very ostensible to the public due to their political campaigns that will convince our voters to vote for them. Different tactics and skims are evident to these aspiring politicians.
Nowadays, vast number of banners and tarpaulins sponsored by prominent politicians are encircling the different municipalities and cities of the country that are obviously bespeaks of the upcoming election. Furthermore, even holiday seasons are also utilize for political purposes wherein last Christmas, some of the well-known politician candidates used to distribute “hamon”- definitely for their political intention. Also the “Feast of the Black Nazarene” last January 9, became an instrument for campaign, politicians gave free t-shirts to those devotee with the face of Black Nazarene in the front and the name of politician at the back. Additionally, television networks, radio stations, newspapers and even social media will be used as their medium to broadcast their propagandas. Political campaign would not be complete without the prepared speeches from the candidates with their smiling faces to the public comprising concerns, generosity, promises, attainments and even their hypocrisy just to highlight their identity and to encourage the public to be at their favour.
In the previous years of political campaign, mudslinging or smear campaign (throwing of negative words to an opponent that will devastate his reputation) were very apparent to most of politicians. And now according to Angelo Blanco of Headline Gitnang Luzon dated January 9 2013 which he stated, ”Politicians, prepare not their guns, not their hatred, not their “paninirang-puri” but their political plans anchored on principle of good governance. This utterance of Blanco seems that this election 2013 would be a peaceful one wherein together with the Comelec appealed to the candidates to refrain or at least to minimize doing smear campaigns and mudslinging which the candidates expected to comply with.
Through the advent of local tri media, social media and active involvement of the curious voters in socio-political issues, smear campaign is not an effective way to convince voters. With the technological advances available nowadays, voters seek for valid information that will help them to distinguish from what is right to what is wrong. Festive atmosphere of political campaign has already been a part of our culture during this season of election. This kind of atmosphere absolutely proves our aspiring politicians exert great effort and willing to exhaust huge amount of pesos just to look pleasing to the authority. However, voters must not easily urged by these gay political campaigns. They must scrutinize these candidates until they find out who is righteous to be in place. Meanwhile, choosing the best candidates seems like a hard task but it would be a harder one to sustain the consequence of wrong choice.