IN May 2015 voters in the United Kingdom went to the polls to elect 650 members of the British parliament. Four major political parties and literally dozens of minor parties placed candidates who stood for election. The total campaign spending converted to Philippine pesos was less than P3 billion.
At home, prior to the beginning of the official campaign season for the 2016 national elections, presidential, vice-presidential and senatorial aspirants spent P6.7 billion on television, radio and print ads from March 2015 to January 2016.
To compare the Philippine elections to that of the UK is, of course, inaccurate as that is a parliamentary election where voters actually vote for the political party and are not concerned who the individual candidate might be.
However, to spend the amount of money that Philippine candidates spend to be elected in a nation, where countless thousands of Filipino children go to bed hungry each night, is a disgrace. No, it is more than a disgrace. It is immoral and obscene.
The vice-presidential candidates spent a combined P1 billion to be elected to an office that, at best, might perform a Cabinet-level function. The winning candidate spent in excess of P400 million to gain an office with a budget of less than P250 million. And these amounts are only the “official” numbers. Who knows how much was actually spent.
The contention that this is private money, rather than public funds, does not make this spending any less improper. There was a huge controversy when then-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her entourage spent P960,000 for dinner in New York paid for with private money. “The extravagance is a manifestation of the Arroyo administration’s insensitivity and hypocrisy while thousands of families suffer hunger,” said one politician, who just spent P463 million in losing the presidential race. We are told that election spending is good for the economy. Nonsense. What sustainable economic benefit comes from campaign materials? In fact, the only economic winners are the Chinese T-shirt manufacturers, advertising on the Alibaba web site, “Perfect for election campaigns.” They are not talking about Chinese elections.
The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism estimates the P6.7-billion preelection advertising could have built 23,000 permanent housing units for Supertyphoon Yolanda survivors and 13,000 public-school classrooms.
For the 2016 campaign, presidential and vice-presidential candidates belonging to political parties could spend up to P557.4 million. If we really want to have a positive economic impact, let’s raise that limit to P5 billion each. Then all Filipinos could have a new T-shirt or even two. If there was any sense of decency, members of the Senate and the House of Representatives would be working on new laws to limit this campaign-spending excess. The UK campaign period is only six weeks long. Could the Philippines’s be shortened?
No elected or appointed government official should ever be allowed to appear in any advertisement one year before an election, even if that commercial is for laundry soap, let alone to promote their agency or function. Campaign donations should be reported as received not after the elections.
Our election spending is wrong and should be changed. It is up to the politicians to do the right thing.
Image credits: Jimbo Albano
2 comments
Shifting to Parliamentary System is a must! Unless we always to have a Personality-based, Popularity-based and name-recalls politics “Presidential System”.
Further, Federalism is best suited with Parliamentarism for the Philippines!
When Gloria Macapagal Arroyo attended the United Nations conventions in New York she also hosted international and local officials. Remember in the United States people don’t spend Philippine Peso. They use US Dollars. So to convert P960,000 to US$ = $19,200 based on P50 vs. $1 rate. This is very much reasonable. When you are hosting dignitaries in international arena you do not serve them hot dogs. Just like president Abnoy was bragging when he ate hot dogs in the street of new York. Hot dogs in New York are not cheap (ex: $3 vs. P50 = P150) depending on the serving it can be higher. So to those of you who condemned GMA about this issue of spending, you are all idiots and stupids.