The Philippine Online Chronicles

Update: deadline extended to June 24.

The long wait is over. Today our new president and vice-president will be proclaimed by the 14^th Congress.  Before we are lost in the revelry, the celebration of a new lease in our “non-existent democracy”, let’s not forget  June 9 is also the deadline of candidates to file their campaign contributions and expenditures of the May 2010 elections to the Commission on Elections (Comelec). Candidates, both losers and winners also need to pay the the five percent campaign tax to the Bureau of Internal Revenue on June 10.

Even before the campaign period started,  Blog Watch showed pertinent Campaign Finance Laws so that voters will be vigilant. We held these public officers accountable to the people. We needed to make sure that our candidates are transparent as to the sources of their campaign money and the true extent of their elections spending as this would impact directly on the candidates’ governance upon assumption to office.  Campaign spending was not given enough importance in the past elections unlike voting and counting procedures.   At the end of the elections, the usual practice is to celebrate the victory, look at disputes, but forget about the finances.

The 2010 elections hopes to be different.  The  Pera at Pulitika 2010 Network of independent media, legal, academic and civil society groups monitored, assessed and reported on campaign-finance issues.

Comelec Resolution 8944, states that candidates, political parties, and party-list groups must file three copies of a "full, true, and itemized" statement of all contributions and expenditures in connection with the elections with the Comelec law department.

I am sure candidates will file promptly because penalties are in place. Failure to file the statement will prevent a person from assuming office, if elected.  Failure to submit documents is considered an administrative offense , punishable by a fine ranging from P1,000 to P30,000 at the discretion of the Comelec. The question is the accuracy of the reports. Comelec Law Department head Ferdinand Rafanan says they have no "capacity" of verifying or auditing the submitted expenditure reports on their own. Perhaps  Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, election finance watchdog Pera at Pulitika will assist together with private citizens in auditing the candidates' expenses.

The question has been raised in the past on the campaign fund sources of President-elect Noynoy Aquino who is the second highest in campaign spending. There has been speculation as to who the funders are if one followed his  political campaign but it would be much better if Aquino listed down the names of the contributor  in the spirit of his declared allegiance to transparency. Are the big funds from  Kamaganak Inc. or “special interest groups” that “hamstring every administration even before it issues its first executive order or appoints its first official.” Aquino has been asked many times in the past to disclose the source of  his campaign funds  as well as the donors. At the beginning of the campaign period, he placed P3 million to P4 million of his personal funds and promised to disclose all his campaign donors at the appropriate time. He revealed that some of his businessmen-supporters were already being targeted by various agencies like the Optical Media Board and the Bureau of Internal Revenue and subjected to inspection.

The resolution says the statement must indicate the amount of contribution, the date of its receipt, and the full name and address of the person who gave the contribution. It should also state the amount of every expenditure, the date it was incurred, the full name and address of the person who paid for it, and the purpose of the expenditure.

The Fair Election Act limited expenses for the candidates. “The president and vice president with political parties are allowed to spend P10 per voter while other candidates with political parties can spend P3 for every voter.This means those gunning for the presidency and vice presidency should have spent only some P508 million during the campaign, based on the 50,850,939 registered voters for the 2010 polls.”

The campaign turned out to be the most expensive yet in Philippine political history. The net total spending on television, radio and print ads by the national candidates and party-list groups alone amounted to P4.3 billion across the 90-day official campaign period from February 9 to May 8, 2010.  PCIJ arrived at the P4.3-billion figure based on data from the media monitoring group Nielsen, and factoring in all the discounts and applicable increases in TV, radio and print ad rates.

This does not even include online ad spending because Comelec did not issue guidelines on online campaigning. PCIJ encountered some difficulty in getting information from Google and Facebook about online spending. This does not help the work of Comelec if ” it were to formulate guidelines to level the playing field for online advertising in future elections. Additional legislation might need to be crafted, and even then, such regulation might just end up outdated come implementation time.”

Violation of the spending limit is an election offense and is punishable by disenfranchisement, disqualification from holding public office, and imprisonment from one to six years.  The candidates probably know this but the question crops up again “will the statement be accurate and truthful?”

An audit of the campaign spending  based on the estimated figure of P4.3 billion should be compared to the Statement of Contributions and Expenditures. The transparency of campaign funds and spending is not limited to the top spenders in the campaign.  The people need to know the real score from all the candidates, win or lose. Increased transparency will improve the public's confidence in the new administration. It remains to be seen if Comelec has the political will to implement the campaign finance law.

Perhaps this time, Aquino will disclose his campaign finances.

Photo: “Philippine Peso” by , c/o Flickr. All Rights Reserved