Rich candidates have the edge, unevens playing field – Lente

Poll watchdog Legal Network for Truthful Elections (Lente) believes that rich candidates have the advantage while those who have little to none are at a handicap.

Lente Executive Director Rona Ann Caritos made the statement during the Pera’t Pulitika Forum on Campaign Finance on Thursday, July 21 organized by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ). During the event, they presented data on political advertising during the May 2022 elections.

PCIJ got the ad spending data of various candidates from Nielsen Ad Intel. According to them, the database covers their spending on television, radio, print, and billboards based on rate cards or before campaign temas may have availed themselves of discounts.

“Data from Nielsen show that President Ferdinand Marcos had ads worth P1.10 billion from Feb. 9 to May 7 while his closest rival, former Vice President Maria Leonor Robredo, had ads worth more than P1.15 billion,” PCIJ said in a statement.

PCIJ also stated that an average of P211 million worth of ads were aired daily by national candidates during the 90-day campaign period demonstrating how expensive it has become to run for public office in the country.

“When we talk about campaign finance, one good principle to have in mind is a level playing field. Dapat pantay-pantay ang mga kandidato sa elections (Candidates should be equal during the elections). [Right now] it’s not a level playing field,” Caritos said.

Former Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Luie Tito Guia, who also graced the event, stated that massive spending of candidates in the recently-conducted elections should serve as a “wake up call” to push for administrative reforms.

“We don’t want money to be dictating electoral choices,” he added.

Based on the data provided by the PCIJ, national candidates “splurged” on ads before and during the official campaign period.

They added that the total donation received by Marcos is the “largest in electoral history.” PCIJ stated that this was because of the increase in the number of registered voters.

In the Statement of Contributions and Expenditures (SOCE) filed by his camp, he did not spend any of his personal funds for the whole duration of his campaign.

Atty. Drixel Dabatos, a member of his legal team, has stated that since they still have some excess from campaign donations, Marcos Jr. no longer needed to use any of his personal resources. In his SOCE, he received total contributions amounting to P624,684,320.09 while he declared total expenditures of P623,230,176.68.

Dabatos said that he will pay the income tax for the P1.45 million leftover from campaign donations. Following the rule of spending P10 per voter, Dabatos said that the expenditures are within the threshold since there are 67 million registered voters.