Stop playing dirty!
Environmental activists want clean elections,
literally and figuratively
12 March 2007

We are alarmed over the Comelec midnight fire which destroyed vital election records and deplore the weekend raid on lead Bayan Muna nominee and second-term solon Satur Ocampo. These are tactics of the dirtiest kind. We believe that these are ominous developments in a series of unfortunate events that are setting the stage for the dirtiest and filthiest elections that the Philippines has had in years, possibly worse than the 2004 elections.

We want a clean election, literally and figuratively.

We from Kalikasan Peoples Network for the Environment (Kalikasan-PNE) want an election that will be free from excessive material and financial waste, and more importantly from the dirt and filth of cheating, fraud, and political harassment. We do not want to see our trees wounded and smothered by posters of anti-environment candidates, our streets littered with trash from the overwhelming amount of paper waste that massive electoral spending generates. But more importantly, we do not want or country to be smeared with the dirt and blood of electoral fraud and political repression. We want a clean election, not a whitewash of muck.

We have seen enough filth during the 2004 electoral period, where the stench of the fertilizer scam and the Garci tapes leaked out. When unsavory characters decided to conserve paper on fake ballots but tampered with the election returns instead. When blood was spilled as hundreds of supporters and campaigners of Bayan Muna, Anakpawis, and Gabriela were killed by suspected military assassins.

This month, we will not merely listen to the jingles and ads of Senatorial and Congressional wannabes. We will also be campaigning against candidates who carry anti-environment and anti-people platforms: who are in favor of mining liberalization for foreign companies, bilateral and toxic free trade agreements such as the JPEPA, who have not lifted a finger against the destruction of our lands, air, and seas, and who have been silent about the political killings and massive electoral fraud in 2004.

Already now, we are seeing tarpaulin posters of candidates?especially administration candidates?being nailed on to trees in our neighborhood here in Quezon City. But this waste and excess is nothing when compared to the dirty tactics that are mounting by the day: the demonizing and instant criminal cases or administrative charges being drummed up against opposition figures, the gearing up of an entire fraud machinery and infrastructure for cheating that will usher in an even dirtier political era until 2010.

We from Kalikasan-PNE join other peoples organizations, non-governmental organizations, and progressive party lists in denouncing and resisting against this onslaught of filth. We call on all the perpetrators of these acts: STOP PLAYING DIRTY, FACE THE ELECTIONS FAIR AND SQUARE. LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE ON THE OUTCOME OF THE 2007 ELECTIONS.

-- Kalikasan-People's Network for the Environment (Kalikasan-PNE)