IT bothers me that money is such a big part of winning elections. In 2013 the Commission on Elections (Comelec) tried to clamp down on candidate spending in several ways: first, by setting an aggregate political broadcast advertising time limit, as opposed to a per-station limit; second, by imposing what eventually came to be known as the “money ban;” and, most important, the Comelec even created a separate unit specifically to monitor campaign spending and disqualify overspending candidates.
None of those efforts seemed to have made a significant dent in the problem, not even the campaign- finance unit. Oh sure, hundreds of cases have been filed, but ultimately, the unit’s effectivity has been torpedoed by the loophole that effectively decriminalized premature campaigning.
It bothers me that, 94 days before the elections, you can’t turn on the television without seeing the advertisements of politicians telling you how awesome they are. But my discomfort at seeing these ads, this early, is overshadowed by the fact that they’ve been doing this sort of thing for almost a year now. We are no longer just the country with the longest Christmas season; we are in serious contention for the distinction of “country with the longest campaign period.”
Most likely, we are also a strong candidate for the dubious title of “country with the most expensive electoral exercises.” In a recent meeting with representatives of the major media networks and the various presidential campaigns, someone dropped this bomb: “P550,000 for 30 seconds.”
The entire Comelec session hall fell deathly silent. Some in the room were probably trying to figure out how to deny that claim; others—like me—were feverishly doing the math in their heads.
Let’s assume you see only one ad every night, but you see it six nights for a week, you’re looking at media spending that amounts to P3.3 million. Assuming further that this sort of exposure has been going on since November, you will arrive at a total expenditure of P39.6 million by the end of January. By the start of the campaign period, this once-a-night, six-nights-a-week spending pattern will have cost approximately P42.9 million. If you’re running for a national office, that’s already more than a quarter of your total allowed spending; and we only computed for one ad per night, six nights per week. How often have you seen the ads of your favorite candidates?
What’s worse is none of that spending will have to be reported in the candidate’s Statement of Contributions and Expenditures, because the expenditures were incurred before the start of the official campaign period. In other words, even if the candidate didn’t technically overspend during the campaign period, he still could have actually gone over the limit. All you need to do to prove that is to include pre-campaign period spending in your calculations—which is precisely what you can’t do.
That bothers me. I’m sure it bothers you, too. The big question, however, is whether it bothers
you enough.
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James Arthur B. Jimenez is director of the Commission on Elections’s Education and Information Department.