LA TRINIDAD, BENGUET, Philippines ? They were veterans of street protests and won seats in the House of Representatives through the party-list system but senatorial hopefuls Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza said they are still getting into the groove of traditional political campaigning.

Ocampo and Maza, who joined Nacionalista Party (NP) standard-bearer Senator Manuel Villar Jr. and other NP senatorial candidates at the vegetable trading post here on Sunday, said this has been a learning process for them.

?Much as we would like to change the campaign system, we realized we could not do it that easy. We have to adjust to the traditional system,? Ocampo said.

This included accepting the fact that campaigning necessarily involved spending millions of pesos, he said.

Ocampo and Maza are among the representatives of the party-list groups Bayan Muna and Gabriela, respectively, in Congress. They are guest senatorial candidates of the NP.

They said they were advocating a politics of change and wanted to raise the level of campaigning by focusing on socioeconomic issues, like respect for human rights and poverty alleviation.

?Unfortunately, mainstream politics is still dependent on resources. The character of the campaign is still traditional,? Maza said.

Ocampo said he and Maza had to accept the fact that people clamor for the presence of movie and television stars and celebrities during campaign rallies.

?It is easy to say politics of change but it is really difficult to make people get this message. The public still looks for entertainment,? Ocampo said.

?We are slowly adjusting to this style of campaigning, it is a slow process. Still, we make sure that we will be taken seriously,? Ocampo said.

He said speeches would eventually bore the audience in a political rally so candidates also need to resort to some forms of entertainment to keep people alert.

?I expected that we would be asked to sing and dance during political rallies but we haven?t done it yet, only Gilbert Remulla and Adel Tamano have sung,? Maza said.

She said people are already familiar with their advocacies and their background.

?All these [gimmicks] are just forms. In the end, people will evaluate our backgrounds and our advocacies,? Maza said.

They said by joining NP?s campaign sorties, they learned about competition and the need for more funds to be spent on media advertising to get noticed.

Ocampo said campaigning for party-list representation was less arduous.

?Before, we only visited the central areas. Now, we have to cover every territory,? he said.

Ocampo said he understood why the system works that way.

?A party-list needed around five to six million votes for a seat in Congress. Now, a senatorial candidate must at least garner 15 million votes to enter the magic 12,? he said.

Maza said the need for funds spelled a candidate?s success on the road.

?For us who have only meager resources, we found the system quite difficult,? Maza said.

She said she and Ocampo have learned to accept that despite their advocacies, they have to work hard within the traditional system to get elected.

Maza said in fact, it was only recently that she decided to get spots on television.

?Satur and I appear in a single advertisement because media advertising is expensive,? she said.

Ocampo said he and Maza had anchored their campaign on the intensive ground work of their supporters.

They said they make sure that their campaign posters are in strategic areas to achieve maximum exposure.

Both said joining the NP sorties helped since it boosted their presence in the provinces.

Ocampo also said he and Maza had to accept they had to do well with few minutes of campaign speeches since there were many of them in the slate to deliver their platforms in any political rally.

Asked to comment on criticisms that Villar was spending much money to buy media mileage, Maza said she found nothing wrong with it.

?I really don?t know how much exactly he (Villar) has spent on his ads. But he spent his own money and this would not make him beholden to others,? Maza said.

Ocampo said the issue with Marcos, son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, had been settled. ?We have accepted that we will be together,? he said.

He said Marcos was not the issue but Villar?s commitment to support his and Maza?s advocacy.