Comelec Aklan releases election regulations for May ‘07 polls
BY VENUS G. VILLANUEVA

KALIBO, Aklan - In campaigning for the May 2007 national and local polls, a candidate under a political party can only spend P3.00 for each registered voter, while an independent candidate can only spend P5.00.
Also, a partylist candidate can only spend P5.00 for each voter while a political party as a group can spend P5 too.
These are just some of the regulations contained in the Fair Elections Act to guide the conduct of the May 2007 elections as revealed by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) here to members of the Aklan media at a recent press conference.
Lorena Tumbagahan, OIC Provincial Election Supervisor here and at the same time Election Officer of the municipality of Kalibo also talked about lawful election propaganda, the regulated sizes of pamphlets, posters, and streamers and the proper way of displaying these materials.
According to Comelec, a candidate running for a national position can have 120 minutes airtime in television or Cable TV and 180 minutes in radio.
For a candidate running for a local position, he can only have 60 minutes campaign airtime on television and Cable TV, and 90 minutes allowed airtime on radio.
Comelec-Aklan appealed to all candidates, national and local, to display their posters only at designated common poster areas in the different towns of the province.
“For every 5,000 voting population, one common poster area will be designated. In Poblacion Kalibo, for instance - two common poster areas were identified - at the Kalibo Pastrana Park and the other one at Toting Reyes Street. All barangays in the province will have common poster areas,” Tumbagahan said.
Tumbagahan also revealed that for this election season, all candidates are required to submit themselves to a mandatory drug test.
Presently, election officers of the different municipalities here are also bracing for their imminent transfer to the nearby provinces of Antique and Capiz, tentatively set on March 15. Tumbagahan said this is Comelec’s usual arrangement for election officers who have stayed in their municipal post for more than four years.
Tumbagahan, who assured that Comelec-Aklan is already prepared for the May 2007 polls, said a total of 1,330 Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) will be serving in the May 2007 elections here. One BEI is composed of three persons, usually teachers from the Department of Education.
There are 273,677 Aklanon voters who will troop to polling centers in the province this May, based on records released by Comelec-Aklan.