Grace Poe is ‘grateful, touched’ by campaign donors’ generosity

Presidential Candidate Grace Poe visits and having a hot seat interview with the Inquirer reporters and editors in PDI office. INQUIRER PHOTO / JILSON SECKLER TIU

Sen. Grace Poe is “grateful and touched” by the generosity shown by her campaign contributors but said she will not feel obligated to them.

Speaking at the Meet Inquirer Multimedia Forum yesterday, Poe said the public’s main concern about campaign donations was whether the candidates would be beholden to their donors.

“I am not naïve, but I have made it clear to many of my donors as early as 2013. I asked them what could we do to improve our country and all of them asked for just one thing—a level playing field. That I can promise. And if [they] get into trouble, I assure them that due process will be followed,” Poe said.

According to a Nielsen Philippines report on television ad spending from Jan. 1 to Nov. 30 last year, Poe spent P448.166 million during the period, second only to Vice President Jejomar Binay, who spent P591.713 million.

Poe said she “nearly fell off my chair” when she heard that she had spent that amount.

Based on rate cards

She clarified that the report was based on published rate cards and not on the actual amounts her supporters paid the networks to run her campaign ads.

The report did not take into account bonuses and discounts given to donors, she said.

Poe said estimates on her TV ad spending might have been inflated by her campaign ads aired regularly on a highly rated, prime-time show. (She did not identify the program but she made the “pabebe” wave of the hand popularized by Eat Bulaga’s AlDub “Kalyeserye” series).

“I will always be grateful to them and I’m touched by their support, but when it comes to what I have to do, I think voters are intelligent enough and they will see if I’m just being political or I’m actually doing my job,” Poe said.

She said her supporters had formed the Great People’s Movement for Progress (GPMP) to centralize contributions and have a more thorough accounting of her campaign spending. She said the last thing she wanted was to be penalized for overspending.

But campaign spending is a sensitive matter for Poe, who said she supported moves to amend campaign laws to restrict ad spending and ensure a more level playing field.

Cap on ads

She said former Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chair Sixto Brillantes Jr. had good intentions when he imposed a cap of 180 minutes on all networks for campaign ads.

With the current laws allowing candidates to use up to 180 minutes in one network, Poe said the Comelec had made the race more elitist, as only a few can afford to spend P360 million per network (based on a rate card of  P1 million per 30-second clip and a maximum of 180 minutes).

“This has made it more difficult for worthy but poor candidates to succeed in an election,” she said.