With names, faces, initials and even color schemes banned from taxpayer-funded tarpaulins, local officials spent the long weekend communicating through water dispensers and eyebrows.

MANILA, Philippines (ManilaNews.PH) – For the first time in living memory, millions of Filipinos visited their departed loved ones over the Undas weekend without being welcomed at the cemetery gate by a giant smiling photograph of a city councilor, an absence that local officials described as “the hardest thing we have ever been asked to do in public service, including the actual public service.”

The empty gates were the result of a Department of the Interior and Local Government circular ordering all offices and LGUs to remove the names, photos and likenesses of officials from government-funded projects, and banning names, images, logos, initials, color schemes, slogans and other identifying symbols from taxpayer-financed signs, markers and tarpaulins. Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla said government programs “must never be used for personal promotion,” and the department summed up the policy in one line: “Government programs are not personal billboards.”

Undas was the policy’s biggest test yet. According to the running coverage of the All Souls’ Day crowds, Manila North Cemetery alone logged well over a million visitors on All Saints’ Day, with the Manila Police District putting the cumulative total past two million. For a certain kind of local official, that is not a crowd. That is a billboard opportunity that walks.

The Rules, Briefly, and the Officials, Barely

“Two million people, and I could not even put my eyebrows on a banner,” said a second-term councilor from a district near the cemetery, who asked to be identified only by “the color I am no longer allowed to wear.” He spent the weekend handing out free bottled water from an unmarked tent. “Unmarked,” he said. “Do you know what that does to a man? My own mother walked past the tent. She did not know it was me. It was the worst Undas of my life, and I say that at a cemetery.”

Police, meanwhile, had their own list of prohibitions. The NCRPO warned the public against bringing banned items into cemeteries, and several barangay officials asked, in writing, whether “a photo of me, laminated” could be added to the list of permitted items, alongside flowers and candles. The request was denied.

A Field Guide to the Workarounds

The DILG’s Field Compliance Unit for the National Capital Region spent the long weekend walking cemeteries with clipboards and documented a wide variety of what it called “creative non-violations.” Among the entries in its preliminary report:

• A free drinking water station with completely blank bottles, whose dispenser played the first four notes of a vice mayor’s campaign jingle every time it was pressed.
• Volunteer “Puntod Finder” help desks staffed by young people in plain white shirts, each printed with nothing but a single, very recognizable eyebrow.
• A tarpaulin bearing only the silhouette of a hairstyle, which 84 percent of passersby surveyed were able to identify by name.
• Free hand fans printed with a QR code that, when scanned, led to a congressman’s Facebook page and automatically followed it.
• A first-aid tent painted in a shade the barangay officially registered as “pre-sunset,” which compliance officers noted is exactly one swatch away from a certain mayor’s signature orange.
• Candles with no initials on them, molded instead into the initials of the official’s nickname, which the official argued is legally a different person.

Not every replacement went smoothly. One barangay that rushed to swap its officials’ names for a generic “Serbisyong Tapat” banner received the order back from the printer reading “Serbisyong Tapas,” an error a compliance officer compared to the farm whose dairy farm sign ended up reading “diary farm”. The barangay kept the banner. Officials said it had tested well.

The Rise of the Human Tarpaulin

The most widespread workaround was also the simplest. Unable to put their faces on tarpaulins, several officials simply brought their faces in person. Compliance officers counted at least 37 elected officials standing at cemetery gates in the exact pose of their old tarpaulins, some for up to 14 hours a day, smiling, waving and holding a thumbs-up at the identical angle that had previously been printed in vinyl at four meters tall.

“Technically, the circular covers signages, markers, tarpaulins and similar materials financed by taxpayers,” said Atty. Cielito Barrameda-Go, who heads the unit’s legal desk. “A human being is not a similar material. However, the official’s salary is financed by taxpayers. So the body is under review. We have formed a committee. The committee is also standing at a gate, because that is where everyone is.”

The Color Scheme Question

The color scheme provision has proven the most contentious. The unit has received over 2,800 citizen reports since the weekend began, of which 61 percent concerned colors, 22 percent concerned eyebrows, and 17 percent concerned a single tricycle in Tondo that is upholstered in a way several residents described as “aggressively partisan.” An internal working group is now drafting a reference chart of protected hues. It is currently on its fourth draft, after a provincial board member argued that he had owned the color teal “since high school.”

Stand-up comic Dodong Evangelista, who performs weekends at a bar in Sampaloc, said the new reality had been hard to watch. “My councilor can’t put his face on the tarpaulin anymore, so now he just stands next to the tarpaulin,” he said. “Three days. Same spot. Same smile. At some point he stopped being a man standing next to a tarpaulin. He became the tarpaulin. Somebody tried to fold him.”

Comedian Liza Pacheco-Uy took the long view. “The ban covers names, faces, initials, logos, slogans and color schemes,” she said. “That’s a politician’s whole personality. Take all that away and what’s left? The budget. And they still won’t show us that.”

Reports From the Public

The DILG has urged citizens to report violations, and the public has responded with enthusiasm. Readers of Bohiney Magazine alone submitted more than 900 photographs of suspected epal activity to bohiney.com over the weekend, including one of a congressman’s face visible in the reflection of a polished mausoleum, which editors declined to forward on the grounds that it was probably an accident and also very well lit.

Mang Celso, a caretaker who has whitewashed tombs at the cemetery for 31 years, said the change had been noticeable. “Every Undas, the politicians come and put their faces here,” he said, leaning on his brush. “This year, they came and put their whole bodies. Next year, I think, they will apply for a plot. Near the main gate, facing the road, with good foot traffic.”

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/