LP: ‘We did not flout the law’

The Liberal Party’s secretary general on Friday defended its late filing of the statement of contributions and expenditures (SOCE) to the Commission on Elections (Comelec), saying that one month was “very tight” for the erstwhile ruling party to account for millions’ worth of expenses from many chapters nationwide.

“The Liberal Party is a national party, with chapters all over the country. As part of due diligence, we had to await receipts, invoices, and information from all these chapters before we could file our SOCE,” LP’s secretary general and Occidental Mindoro Rep. Josephine Sato said in a statement on Friday.

“The deadline is one month after elections—very tight considering none of the other candidates has an organization as wide as ours, and we had to account for millions’ worth of expenses,” she said.

Despite failing to meet the deadline last June 8, Sato maintained that the party did not disregard its responsibility to file a campaign expense report.

“We officially informed Comelec that we would be late and asked for an extension. Now, one week later, we have filed our papers. We did not disregard our responsibility and we certainly did not flout the law,” she said.

The Comelec on Thursday granted the plea of the LP and its defeated presidential candidate Mar Roxas to extend the deadline of the SOCE filing.

Had the Comelec rejected the request of the LP and Roxas, all of its winning candidates, including Vice President-elect Leni Robredo could not assume power on June 30, 2016.