Supporting Candidates In The Coming Election

The question of whether an Internet café association (ICA) must support candidates in the coming May 10 election is cropping up again because it is now an established belief that political campaigns in the Internet can influence the results of the voting. The results of the November 2008 presidential election in the United States where President Barack Obama anchored his campaign in the Internet using www.barackobama.com as the vehicle is a living proof of the strong influence of political campaigns in the Internet. Assuming that the ICA would agree to help in the campaign of a candidate by allowing his face, bio-data and platform of government to be displayed in the workstation monitors of association members plus campaign posters that will be displayed in the vicinity of an i-café for a fee to the ICA and its participating members, what do you think would be the repercussions of such a decision?

I say, there will be no negative repercussions to the ICA for as long as it will offer equal opportunity and Internet exposure to all candidates. In such a case, a winning candidate cannot exact any revenge to the ICA even if he did not avail of the offer because he was also offered the opportunity but he declined. Some mechanics like equal Internet time exposure using rotating display of campaign materials must be put in place in order to ensure equal use of i-café facilities. The ICAs must take note and implement this policy of equal support to candidates or else it could be courting trouble when they sided with only one party and the candidates that they support lose the election.

The above said, the question may be thrown to a supposedly apolitical organization like I-Café Pilipinas and asked what would be decision of this advocacy group. I am not evading the question but, honestly, the question has not been discussed in a meeting among its convenors. If and when the question become part of the a future board meeting, I wish to inform that my one (1) vote will be for yes with clarifications stated above.