‘Either only Iloilo City is complying, or Iloilo City doesn’t need a toothless Comelec to enforce a regulation that is beneficial to the environment – and even to our mental health!’
IF you happen to fly into Iloilo City these days, you might think you’re in a time warp.
Not in the sense that the city gives off a vibe that it is a throwback to a decade or so earlier, nor that it is a futuristic urban community of the Jetsons.
The time warp is for a different reason: there’s no evidence that it is election season. Posters do not adorn every available wall and streamers do not hang from every available eave or lamppost. In fact, Iloilo City is generally so devoid of political campaign materials that you wouldn’t think Willie Revillame is running for the Senate or Raisa Treñas is running unopposed for Iloilo City mayor. (Note: I don’t know any of them personally, and I won’t vote for the former and cannot vote for the latter.)
How is this possible when everywhere else across our 7,100+ islands and shoals, minus some that China has occupied, we see nothing but political campaign materials and will continue to do so long after the last ballot has been cast and counted?
It pays to have a loquacious driver who provides an unending stream of facts and chismis as you go your way traveling from airport to hotel and hotel to a meeting and a meeting to meal venue and meal venue back to the hotel. I’ll hide my driver under the alias “Charles”; Charles was more than happy to explain to a “foreigner” like me how they do it in Iloilo.
There are designated areas for posters and streamers, he says. And that’s only where the campaigns can put up their expensive posters and streamers. If these are put up anywhere else, they’re taken down by authorities. As a result, Iloilo City is devoid of all the costly materials that will soon become trash and a headache for city trash collectors to dismantle, take down, recycle or what.
Listening to him, I began to recall that there seemed to have been some Comelec rule that posters should only be put up at designated areas, with every campaign provided with equal space for every candidate. The logic behind that was precisely to achieve what Iloilo has achieved. But how come anywhere you go, except Iloilo, you see the political trash everywhere? (And the campaign season has just officially started, mind you.) Either only Iloilo City is complying, or Iloilo City doesn’t need a toothless Comelec to enforce a regulation that is beneficial to the environment – and even to our mental health!
Mabuhay Iloilo City!
On my way home, my driver-guide-political commentator was still at it. Through him I found out that erstwhile allies former Mayor Jed Mabilog and outgoing Mayor Jerry Treñas are now at odds, with the “break” happening after Raisa, Mayor Jed’s daughter, filed her candidacy for the mayoralty, unopposed, Charles tells me that the Treñases were able to convince Mabilog not to run – thereby effectively sealing victory for the younger Treñas: but now it seems Mabilog has “buyers’ remorse.” The former mayor and Duterte critic would have handily won, says Charles, had he run. Hmmm.
This political drama makes Iloilo City even more interesting to me, but nothing beats being (I think) the only city in the Philippines that has kept its sense intact and spared its residents the garishness of posters and streamers showing smiling faces of incompetents and clowns vying for our votes.
May Iloilo City’s tribe increase!
(When in Iloilo City, try grabbing a meal at Pope and Co – a steaks and seafood restaurant with excellent fare. I am not a co-owner, mind you, but I was so pleased by the food that I’d like to give the restaurant a boost!)
