IT IS SAID that children are made to pay for the sins of their parents.
But in Philippine elections, fathers sometimes make the children commit sin, or violations of election laws, in their stead.
At the Quirino Almario Elementary School in Tondo, one of the schools with the biggest number of voters in the National Capital Region, we found children distributing different types of campaign paraphernalia to voters rushing inside the voting precincts.
The campaign paraphernalia include sample ballots, paper and plastic fans, and flyers with the faces and names of candidates and party-list groups.
These materials were also scattered from the road outside the school, all the way up to the hallways of the school.
The Commission on Elections had made it clear that any form of campaigning was already banned beginning Sunday, May 12.
Some children were also distributing flyers bearing the faces of the candidates. When we tried to take their photographs and interview them, they threw down the campaign paraphernalia.