No Contest: Reporting Unopposed Candidates

Screengrab of the March 27 front page of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

CHEERS TO several media organizations for looking into and reporting on the phenomenon of candidates for various posts who are running unopposed — an issue crucial to the health of Philippine democracy but rarely gets media mileage during elections.

Because elections in a democracy are all about choice, the fact that in a number of instances at the local level the electorate has no option except to vote for a candidate running unopposed amounts to voters’ not  having any choice at all.

On March 27, the Philippine Daily Inquirer had “GMA, Imee lead unopposed bets” as its banner story. It noted the number of local candidates who are “assured of victory” because they’re running unopposed, as the start of the campaign season for local elections began on Black Saturday, March 26.

The Inquirer reported 542 candidates for district representative, governor, vice governor, mayor, and vice mayor who are running unopposed, with the following provinces having the most number of such candidates: Ilocos Sur (25), Isabela (21), Ilocos Norte (19), Pangasinan (16), Apayao (11), and Cagayan and Pampanga (10 each).

The report noted that the reasons why these candidates are unchallenged are “still areas of speculation.” But it also pointed out that “some unchallenged candidates are in areas reputed to be controlled by political dynasties.”

ABS-CBN News Channel’s The World Tonight also aired RG Cruz’s report “546 local bets running unopposed in Halalan 2016” on March 28, which pointed out the importance of a candidate’s having a strong political machinery, the number of unopposed candidates running for various posts, and their political affiliations.

InterAksyon.com and The Philippine Star reported last February and early March on the phenomenon of unopposed candidates, based on the initial lists of candidates that the Comelec released. InterAksyon posted two (“SIGURADONG PANALO | 27 bets for top provincial posts running unopposed”  on Feb. 5 and “SIGURADONG PANALO | 37 candidates running unopposed for House seats” on Feb. 19), with both reports noting the number of unchallenged candidates in 20 provinces and the House  of Representatives. The Star published “558 bets in local polls unopposed,” on March 6 on its front page.

On March 27, MindaNews ran two similar stories. “As in past elections, it’s still all in the family in Mindanao’s 27 provinces and 33 cities but Agusan del Sur has made history this year as the only province where candidates running for Governor, Vice Governor, 10 Provincial Board members and two Representatives need not campaign for the May 9 elections: they are all running unopposed under the National Unity Party (NUP), Commission on Elections (Comelec) records show,” wrote Carolyn Arguillas in “Hashtag #nochoice: Agusan del Sur’s entire slate unopposed.” In “Winners all before May 9: 4 Mindanao Govs, 5 city mayors, 7 reps,” Arguillas notes that “of Mindanao’s 27 provinces and 33 cities, four candidates for governor, five for city mayor and seven for representative in Congress have won even before the campaign period started on March 26: only they filed certificates of candidacy for their respective posts.”

With the media’s tendency to focus on the top posts during the elections (Read: “Media Focus Still Limited to Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates”), these reports promote public awareness about the hold of political dynasties over the electoral system, especially at the local level where governance affect the masses more directly, and the negative impact such control has on the growth of genuine democracy.