Pinoys approve Anti-epal bill

By: Marleen Y. Peroz

The “Anti-epal” bill or Senate House Bill No. 1967 filed by Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago gained thousands of supporters in social networking sites like facebook and twitter and even in other online sites.

According to the Philppine Daily Inquirer, active organizers of the bill along with Kwan Initiatives made an android application ‘InstaPatrol’ that allows users to report ‘epal’ politicians through sending images or videos.

Indeed the application would be useful to spot politicians campaigning earlier than the allotted campaign period for May 2013 elections.

Also according to an Inquirer report, Mae Paner a.k.a. Juana Change, an artist taking part in advocacies for the country was spotted discussing terms with Sixto Brilliantes regarding the anti-epal bill.

The Comelec is also against the early campaign of credit-grabbers, inquirer said.

The colloquial term ‘epal’ which means getting the attention of everyone and being a credit-grabber, is associated to politicians who put their names, images or logos beside government funded projects.

The bill Senator Miriam Santiago filed in longer terms, “Act prohibiting public officials claiming credit through signage announcing a public works project”, aims to penalize politicians who claim the credit of the projects paid by taxpayers.

The proposal of Senator Santiago’s legislative status is still pending in the committee as confirmed by the Senate’s official website.

However, as stated in Senator Miriam Santiago’s official website, she was pleased to know that there is an utmost support from online civil society groups for the bill to be immediately passed.