Proposed raising of campaign spending limit will favor rich candidates – Pimentel

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III (File photo from a video taken by the Senate Public Relations and Information Bureau)

MANILA, Philippines — A proposal to raise the allowable campaign spending would be “too favorable” for rich candidates, Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III said on Tuesday during the Senate’s plenary session.

“I’m worried about the national campaign. Maybe we might have authorized a campaign amount that is unrealistic or too favorable for the moneyed candidates,” Pimentel said.

The chamber was tackling Senate Bill No. 810,  titled “An Act Increasing the Authorized Expenses of Candidates and Political Parties.”

The bill proposes to raise the allowable campaign spending of presidential and vice presidential candidates to P50 per voter from the current P10, according to Sen. Imee Marcos, who is sponsoring the measure as chairperson of the Senate electoral reforms committee.

Independent candidates can spend up to P30. Meanwhile, political parties can allocate P30 for each voter from the current P5.

According to Marcos, the measure “will reduce the number of protests involving overspending, under-reporting, and even nuisance candidates.”

She added that raising the amount of the allowable expenditure of candidates during their campaign might be reasonable considering that a 30-second television ad can cost around P700,000.

But Pimentel still expressed misgivings about the proposed increases.

“My interpretation, you have an upper limit on your expenditure and you can choose to place this in ads, you can choose not to place this in ads. So no matter the per minute, per second cost, it’s the candidate’s decision to spend his campaign fund,” he said.

“So, if the [total allowable expenditure is] P3 billion, [it] will give us the impression that only moneyed candidates can gun for national offices,” he added.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III, meanwhile, said raising the minimum amount of allowable campaign expenditure “practically disqualifies the poor candidates.”

Marcos said she would open to discuss the matter with other senators to amend the amounts stated in the bill.

“If you would like to submit amendments on these amounts, I will be grateful for your suggestions,” she said.

“We would like to find a balance between truthful reporting in our SOCE (statements of contributions and expenditures) and at the same time not coming out with anti-poor legislation,” she added.

[atm]