Comelec to monitor social media spending, cost of hiring ‘influencers’ – spox

Comelec office. FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will be monitoring a candidate’s spending on social media, including the cost of hiring “influencers,” its spokesperson said.

“Influencers, that’s the thing, those are the ones that are being paid for, those are the ones whose work are capable of pecuniary estimation…Yun yung imo-monitor namin,” Comelec Spokesperson told reporters after he attended the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on the automated election system at the Senate.

He said that the Comelec would be requiring candidates to file expenditure reports, which includes the cost of the campaign made on social media.

“We’re also requiring candidates to submit expenditure reports that will include expenditures made to social media associates. So these social media associates will be considered contractors of the campaign so they are people who will be working for the campaign because they are being paid by the campaign,” Jimenez said.

The poll body, he noted, would also require candidates to present the links of their official campaign pages.

“We’re gonna monitor main way of doing that is to require all of the candidates is to submit the names of their official pages their official campaign pages so the URLS of the pages that they will use in an official capacity to use to push for their campaign,” Jimenez said.

The Comelec spokesman also reminded that any form of campaign material on social media, particularly those where the “effort is significant enough,” should be accompanied by a certificate of acceptance.

“It will be considered a donation and therefore required a certificate of acceptance, otherwise kung maglalabas ka lang naman ng post everyday just to say na you know boto o si “X” boto mo si ganyan that, again these are very small efforts,” he said.

“A lot of these have to do with nature and the quality and perhaps the extent of the activity being conducted and as far as we’re concerned it’s the cost to the campaign that we are most interested in,” he added.