The Philippine Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and an environmental group urged candidates to take down their campaign materials today, as ballot counting in yesterday’s midterm elections nears its end.
In a statement released today, DILG Secretary Eduardo Año said all candidates should clean up their communities, whether they won or lost.
“What you should immediately do is to encourage your supporters to remove your campaign materials from your community,” he said in Filipino. “Whether you won or lost, show your sense of sportsmanship and your pure intentions for your community by participating in the cleanup.”
The secretary said he’s counting on village captains, mayors, and governors to lead the cleanup, along with their city or town’s respective sanitation division or environmental management office. He said that it’s important to clean up schools — which served as voting precincts — immediately because classes will start in June.
The environmental group Ecowaste Coalition also encouraged candidates to take down their campaign materials. They also said that instead of throwing them away, these materials should be upcycled.
In a statement that appeared on their official Facebook page, their leader Aileen Lucero said: “Sort the dismantled campaign materials and upcycle them as much as possible.”
“Upcycling, or the creative reuse of discards, is a practical way of saving resources from being burned or sent to the dumps and landfills for disposal,” she added.
Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) has already started cleaning up the metro. The agency collected a total of 145.42 tons of campaign materials today, reported Balitanghali. According to the MMDA, they collected the most trash from the City of Manila, where they gathered 30,000 pieces of trash.
The capital was followed by Quezon City (25,000), Parañaque (13,000), Makati (10,400), and Caloocan (8,000).
