Election reform advocate and former Comelec commissioner Luie Tito Guia recently urged candidates in the midterm elections to bare the sources of their campaign funds, including those used to finance advertisements before the start of the campaign period, as he also urged the public to seek transparency from those running for public office.
“It is good to ask the candidates why they are spending huge amounts for a salary that will not reach one-fifth (of what they spent),” he said.
“They should be obligated to explain that. The public should ask, ‘What’s in it for you?’ That’s a question that should be directed to all candidates running for public office,” he added.
Guia was reacting to a recent report of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, which found that the value of the advertisements placed by some of those running in this midterm elections are already worth millions, or even billions, in the cases of Senator Imee Marcos and Las Piñas Representative Camille Villar.
Guia said candidates must disclose the source of funds used for the ad placements, particularly if they used personal money or received donations.
A well-known election law loophole is that spending before the campaign period, which begins on February 11 for candidates running for national office, are not covered by the mandatory statement of contributions and expenditures (SOCE) that candidates are required to file after the elections.
He said the problem lies in the election automation law, which prescribed that an individual “shall only be considered as a candidate at the start of the campaign period for which he filed his certificate of candidacy,” which allows overspending prior to the start of the campaign period, even if the CoC has already been filed. The current setup does not provide a level playing field and is heavily skewed towards those with funds.
As long as this well-known election law loophole is not closed, politicians with unlimited funds will continue to exploit it and the playing field will never be level. As long as our legislators, who are among the most blatant beneficiaries of this loophole, do nothing to close it, all we can do now is to appeal to the candidates to play fair and respect the spirit of the law, as even the Comelec cannot do anything, except to stand aside and simply watch as what should be election violations take place because nobody can do anything about it.*
