Bad news for vote buyers looking to source materials for their campaigns — you’ll have to look a little harder inside a certain major bookstore for money envelopes you might need, since they’re no longer being displayed with other election essentials.
The bookstore, in a letter to the Commission on Elections (Comelec), confirmed that it has directed its branches to remove money envelopes from a marketing promotion inside stores that displayed sections for “election materials essentials.”
The Comelec requested the media to refrain mentioning the name of the store.
The Comelec wrote to the management on Monday, March 17, expressing concern over a report it received that one of the store’s branches in Metro Manila had small coin envelopes and ampaos included with other school and office supplies that can be used in election activities, such as glue, scissors, and stamp pads.
“Although we are aware that such envelopes may be used for other legitimate purposes during elections such as payments for watchers and suppliers, we are constrained to humbly appeal for your kind indulgence for corrective action as we fear that said marketing strategy may normalize vote buying and/or the rampant distribution of money during elections,” Comelec Chairman George Garcia wrote in his letter.
Children are regular clients of this bookstore because of its wide variety of school supplies. While Garcia said that the Comelec does not want to interfere with how the store conducts its business, the poll body still worries the impression the promo might leave with young Filipinos.
“We also worry that impressionable children and minors who frequent your stores may be led to believe that the illegal practice of vote buying is societally condoned,” Garcia wrote.
On Wednesday, March 19, the bookstore wrote back to the Comelec, confirming that the materials were pulled out of the promo.
They also said that they meant no malice.
“While we understand and appreciate your point that small money/coin envelopes might be used in illegal activities such as vote-buying during election season, we assure your good office that there was no malice nor any ill-intention on our part to attribute the marketing and use of the said envelopes to vote-buying,” the bookstore’s president wrote.
The president added that the pullout of the money envelopes in the “election materials essentials” promos was coordinated and cascaded to all its branches.
The Comelec, in its mandate to oversee the Philippine elections, is also in charge of preventing and penalizing vote-buying. – Rappler.com