To address poll spending, Drilon pushes for reforms of election laws

Senate President Franklin Drilon. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / JOAN BONDOC

Saying he has no “magic solution” to the “expensive” election spending of candidates in the upcoming elections in May, Senate President Franklin Drilon instead pushed on Wednesday for reforms of election laws, starting with the proposed Political Party Reform Act.

“Yes, so expensive, and we have to take the bull by the horn especially in the next Congress insofar as election spending is concerned, and better monitoring is concerned,” Drilon said in an interview over ANC when asked about the reported billions of pesos being spent by candidates in the 2016 elections even ahead of the official campaign period on February 9.

First, he said, Congress should review the existing law, which he said might have been already “outmoded,” particularly the allowable or authorized spending for every candidate.

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“The law is violated, but maybe we look at how reasonable the law is. That’s one,” said the Senate leader.

“Number two, the Political Reform Act. Of course, it is an idea which, maybe, we will not have the support. In other countries, the candidates are given support by the government. Of course, those are countries with better economies such as the United States,” he said.

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Drilon said the debate on election spending could start with the proposed Political Reform Act, which he said is “something that we should work on.”

“The reason why people hate politicians is that we change parties like we change our clothes every day,” he said.

“I have no magic solution to this election spending, but we should look into it because, as you’ve mentioned, election spending, has gotten expensive, with almost P600 million for the whole year of 2015 is something that to me, we should look at whether we can regulate this.”

“P600 million and this was done before election period and this was not counted. Shouldn’t we ask them to reveal their contributors? And maybe this is one of the areas that we will look into in the reform of the election laws,” Drilon added. RAM