Senator Richard Gordon is asking why the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has not acted on reports that his rivals in the presidential race—Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III and Manuel Villar—may have already overspent on television ads.
While Aquino and Villar may have exceeded the legal limit, TV ads of Sen. Maria Ana Consuelo “Jamby” Madrigal, an independent presidential candidate, have finally gotten airtime, which she claims has been cornered by the two over the past two months.
On Saturday, ABS-CBN started airing Madrigal’s 30-second TV ads on prime time. The same infomercials will be aired shortly by GMA 7.
“And unlike Manny Villar’s infomercials, my TV ads do not exploit children. There are no show biz stars and no singing and dancing. They also show that I’m a candidate running a different campaign, one without hakot (busing). They’re principle-and issue-based,” Madrigal said Sunday.
Sought for comment on a report by a market research firm, Gordon said the Comelec should disqualify both Aquino and Villar.
In a report last week, Nielsen Media Research said television ad spending of the two leading candidates might have exceeded the legal limit. This depends, however, on how the poll body will interpret the ads.
Three types
The Comelec classifies ads into three: ads by a candidate, ads by a political party and donated ads. Some candidates insist that donated or “paid for” ads should not be credited against their allotted airtime.
The law allows a candidate or political party to have a maximum airtime of 120 minutes for TV ads and 180 minutes for radio ads for each station during the official campaign period.
Villar used 134.25 minutes on ABS-CBN alone from the start of the campaign period on Feb. 9 to March 31. However, his placements would be counted as 50.75 minutes only if the Comelec’s “paid for” guidelines were applied.
On GMA 7, Villar consumed 143.25 minutes but that would be equivalent to only 60.25 minutes under the “paid for” guidelines.
Aquino used 133 minutes on ABS-CBN but he would have consumed only 118.5 minutes of his allowable airtime if the “paid for” guidelines were applied.
Other violations ignored
Gordon lamented that while the poll body was quick to admonish him, his running-mate Bayani Fernando and fellow presidential candidate Eddie Villanueva for their oversized billboards, the Comelec was apparently ignoring violations by other candidates.
Gordon earlier maintained that his and Fernando’s oversized billboards were put up by supporters and were part of their freedom of expression. But after the initial defiance, his camp later asked their supporters to bring down the billboards.
Set example
He said: “I am just complying with the law even if I am not the one violating the law. I want to set an example especially since I am running for public office.”
Gordon’s camp received an official notice from the Comelec a month after the poll body’s spokesperson singled out his billboards at a press conference as among those that exceeded the limit. His campaign coordinators subsequently requested supporters to dismantle the billboards they had put up on Edsa and on the North Luzon Expressway.
The Bagumbayan Party presidential candidate said he was complying with the law despite the brazen violations of his fellow presidential candidates.
He said the billboards and banners of Aquino, Villar and administration standard-bearer Gilbert Teodoro were much larger. He said Aquino and Teodoro also have ads shown on a huge electronic billboard in Cebu.
Alternative
As for Madrigal’s TV ads, these are “one of Jamby’s aces,” said French husband, Eric Dudoignon Valade.
The senator, who has no running mate and senatorial slate, said “it’s about time we told the people who still don’t know my advocacy that aside from the two leading candidates, there is someone else who could be an alternative.”
Madrigal said her infomercials were “so different that Villar will have to put out 20 commercials to match the impact” of one of her commercials.
She noted that her TV ads were part of her “walking my talk.”
“I promised the Filipino people when I declared that I would be a presidential candidate who would run out of principle and not out of political ambition,” she said.
Madrigal added that her infomercials would also be a good chance for voters to finally see completely what her platform was after running her campaign for two months.
“During the past two months, I did not compete with Villar for airtime because he bought all the airtime you can’t even barely get anything … So, if it’s only a matter of airtime, the richest person will always be our president. But I think God loves us enough not to make that a reality,” she said.
Valade, who described himself as “Jamby’s No. 1 fan,” said he and Madrigal “believe in quality, not in quantity of TV ads.”
“I believe strongly that even without using popular actors and actresses, Jamby’s ads can influence more people. If using show biz people would be the case, the likes of Mike Defensor, Chavit Singson and [Prospero] Pichay would be senators today. But they are not.”
Valade observed that “so many famous people are endorsing every Tom, Dick and Harry today. I think it’s an insult to the Filipino intelligence.”
Informed choice
Ranulph West, a Madrigal family friend, said the senator’s TV ads “may not have catchy music but they provide information about issues or about a state that people are in and they need help.”
“They provide voters with an informed choice,” West said.
Fritzi Lim, Madrigal’s secretary, said that “despite the absence of Kapamilya and Kapuso stars, Senator Jamby’s infomercials uplift Filipino values.”
Both West and Lim believed that Filipino voters could see through show biz folk endorsing candidates and relate to Madrigal’s ads.
Use of children
Madrigal was the first to criticize Villar’s “numerous and frequent infomercials and jingles and their use of children and actors and actresses.”
Villar’s ads play up his alleged ordeal as a poor boy from the slums who made good with jingles containing lyrics like “Have you bathed in a sea of trash?”
Aquino’s TV ads, on the other hand, feature more than a dozen ABS-CBN and GMA 7 artists led by Kris Aquino, the senator’s famous sister, Ai Ai de las Alas, Dingdong Dantes, Marian Rivera and Ogie Alcasid.
No comments:
Post a Comment