MMDA, Comelec to start massive cleanup vs campaign materials Monday

As the campaign period nears its homestretch, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority and the Commission on Elections will start this Monday an extensive cleanup operation of illegally posted campaign materials in Metro Manila. Some 700 personnel from the MMDA Sidewalk Clearing Operations Group (SCOG), Road Clearing Operations Group (RCOG) and Landscape Management Office will take part in the operation starting April 19, the MMDA said in its website. “This isn’t merely a show of force. We want all the political parties and candidates to know that we are dead serious in implementing the Comelec policy against illegal posting of campaign materials," MMDA Chairman Oscar Inocentes said.

The cleaning teams will start their cleanup work at 8 a.m. on Monday, backed up by a security contingent from the Philippine National Police (PNP). Inocentes will be accompanied by Comelec Metro Manila director Michael Dioneda in the mobilization of MMDA workforce and equipment. Monday’s operation was finalized after a meeting between Inocentes, MMDA General Manager Robert Nacianceno and Dioneda at the MMDA office. Earlier this week, the MMDA Legal Service Department formally filed criminal charges against Quezon City vice mayoralty candidate Janet “Babes" Malaya and her supporters. It accused Malaya's supporters of harassing a group of MMDA workers who were removing posters and tarpaulins that were placed outside the Comelec-designated poster areas along Commonwealth Avenue. Dioneda said they will “strongly monitor" the case, as well as all the other cases the MMDA will file against erring politicians and candidates in the future. For his part, Nacianceno said they will also document and submit to Comelec the illegally posted campaign materials to the elections body to be used as evidence in the separate filing of violations of Fair Elections Act against these candidates. “We will file charges not only against the candidates, but also their political parties," Inocentes added. Aside from political posters, Inocentes also instructed the clearing teams to go after political advertisements placed on the private billboards and posts of the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) 3 along EDSA. “There will be no exemption on candidates regardless of their political parties, we will have to dismantle all kinds of political posters even those that are posted at the private billboards of the MRT," he said. He added they have authority from the Comelec to go after all kinds of illegal campaign paraphernalia. Meanwhile, the MMDA is also looking to donate tarpaulins to bag makers to dispose of the increasing volume of illegal political tarpaulins seized from non-designated common poster areas and in major thoroughfares of Metro Manila. “We can donate these tarpaulins for free to cottage industries. All they need to do is to get them from the MMDA office and we will give it to them," he said. Truckloads of campaign paraphernalia seized by the Sidewalk Clearing Operations Group (SCOG) and Road Clearing Operations Group (RCOG) could not just be disposed of to the landfills because they are non-biodegradable materials, he said. — LBG, GMANews.TV