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Television stars will have to leave their shows for the duration of the campaign period if they would continue to endorse candidates, said the Parish Pastoral Council for Resposible Voting (PPCRV).

The accredited citizen arm for the May 10 elections cited the Fair Elections Act, which mandates actors, columnists, broadcasters and other mass media personalities who endorse candidates to take a leave from their media outfits while campaign is ongoing, Inquirer.net reported.

Section 6 of the Fair Election Act or Republic Act No. 9006 provides that: “Any mass media columnist, commentator, announcer, reporter, on-air correspondent or personality who is a candidate for any elective public office or is a campaign volunteer for or employed, or retained in any capacity by any candidate or political party shall be deemed resigned, if so required by their employer, or shall take a leave of absence from his/her work as such during the campaign period.”

The said provision is intended to prevent any national candidate from “unduly benefiting” from any print or broadcast exposure made by his/her celebrity endorser.

Violation of the Act is punishable by one to six years imprisonment.

PPCRV lawyer Howard Calleja said they are expecting the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to be able to implement the resolution next week since it had been promulgated only recently.

Should the provision take effect, many A-list celebrities from both network giants, ABS-CBN 2 and GMA 7, would be gone from their television stints for the meantime.

Survey frontrunners Senator Manny Villar and Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III have tapped big names in the showbiz industry to boost their campaign ads.

Aquino's first TV ad brought together a stellar cast from the competing networks, led by his sister, popular talk-show host Kris Aquino. The song used for the commercial was composed by Ogie Alcasid and was sung by Asia's songbird Regine Velasquez. Also appearing on the ad were "Megastar" Sharon Cuneta, Dingdong Dantes, Marian Rivera, Boy Abunda, Ai-ai delas Alas, Mariel Rodriguez, Bianca Gonzales, Eric Santos, and Aquino's brother-in-law, cager James Yap, and his Purefoods basketball team.

On the other hand, Villar, whose advertisements have reportedly cost him over P500 million in the last quarter of 2009 alone, is being endorsed by the “King of Comedy” Dolphy [Quizon], comedian Michael V., TV Host Willie Revillame and most recently by pop singer-actress Sarah Geronimo.

Bashing Villar's tv ads -- which his adversaries claim outnumber theirs by eight to one-- has become a staple in other candidates' speeches at campaign sorties.

In the recent Inquirer-sponsored presidential debate, lone female presidential aspirant Sen. Jamby Madrigal lambasted Villar for using actors in his excessive tv commercials and questioned his ad spending. Reminded that she had, too, used a celebrity – drama actress Judy Ann Santos in her 2007 senatorial campaign, Madrigal said, “I have seen the folly of my ways. I'll not do it again.”

Villar's camp said, however, that the sudden boost in his popularity ratings was "not because of the ads."

"It's the [rags-to-riches] narrative and the message," defended Nacionalista Party spokesperson Gilbert Remulla. "If you have a bad message, advertisements would not have mattered."