Improving the coverage of campaign finance and the wealth of public officials will take a village, from newsrooms re-assessing its election coverage, candidates and parties being more forthcoming with information, to Congress and Comelec instituting campaign-finance reforms and institutions of accountability taking part.
1. Open and timely access to information
Campaign-finance disclosures are submitted 30 days after election day and depending on when the Comelec CFO is able to compile the records, the documents may not be publicly available until two or three months post-elections. In the future, it may be good to consider the release of SOCEs during the campaign period as opposed to the current timeline. Apart from allowing reporters a peek into the spending and donations of candidates and parties somewhat real-time, this practice may also help prevent candidates and parties from “massaging” their reports to comply with rules.
Comelec and election watchdogs should likewise encourage candidates and parties to provide timely updates about their donors and expenditures. Election watchdogs may coordinate with reporters and come up with an “honor roll” for candidates who are transparent about their finances or those who provide regular updates about their funders. Of course, candidates may use this to enhance their images but at least it will force them to be transparent. A candidate who sees his rival in that “honor roll” may be compelled to disclose his funders.
In its monitoring, CMFR notes that, “For the kind of work that requires access to information and documents, there was little protest from the media about the impediment to their journalistic duty and the public’s fundamental right to information. Only a select few reported that the SALN is among the bases for assuring the transparency that is required of public officials.”
CMFR adds, “Media coverage which ignored the Ombudsman’s memo, or reported this without critical context, raises questions about how journalists can do the job of government watchdog, if they are not interested in the SALN. It ignores the public’s increasing demand for government accountability and the obvious contradiction of the memo to the president’s oft-repeated claim that he is against corruption.”
Perhaps it is the pandemic or the support that this administration has as reflected in surveys that discourages any action from the media on these issues. But definitely, it is high time that the media community convenes and consolidates its effort to any and all threats against campaign finance reporting, access to information, and press freedom on the whole.
Comelec could also engage with other institutions of accountability like the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Office of the Ombudsman, or the Commission on Audit in developing a recording system, which could result into a database for anti-corruption work.
Comelec may also consider forming a data collection team that will collate and clean datasets submitted by candidates so reporters can easily review them. Releasing data in soft or electronic copies, instead of printed or scanned documents, should be prioritized.
Alvia adds that the Commission has to embrace open election data principles. He notes that sharing campaign finance or election information could very well be a force multiplier to flag erring candidates and parties.
2. Covering elections as a policy theme, rather than as a beat
Newsrooms and news management must see the value of campaign finance beyond the context of elections. This could come in the form of linking elections with other beats such as business and finance, accountability, corruption or local reporting as well as dedicating resources to ensure independent reporting.
This also applies in countries where documents such as SOCEs and SALNs do not exist or are not publicly available. Lack of access to these records will pose challenges, but understanding that elections follows a cycle and various processes beyond the campaign seasons offers avenues for reporting.
As Caritos and Alvia pointed out, journalists need to sustain election coverage as it has multiple forward and backward links and is hinged upon various other issues such as procurement, business, and participation of marginalized sectors especially indigenous peoples.
Reporters can thus cover candidates and parties and even election administrators and service providers more comprehensively, allowing audiences to better understand key issues. This may also offer opportunities for reporters or news organizations to collaborate and essentially cover the elections better.
3. Strengthening the Campaign Finance Office
Given Comelec’s history, the establishment of the CFO is already a welcome development. But it is high time for the office to tackle its internal problems head-on. It would be good to have more experts, such as auditors, certified public accountants, and financial analysts, in its roster.
The strict compliance of contractors and media entities in providing receipts and advertising contracts is greatly needed as well. The SOCE is self-reporting essentially. The CFO has to rely on third-party sources of information to verify a candidate’s declaration. Without complete submission from these entities particularly the media, which receive bulk of campaign funds for advertising, it would be difficult for the CFO to conduct an airtight audit.
Internet advertising, for instance, is not clearly defined in the law, making it difficult for Comelec to regulate it. It can be done but excuses will always be raised because the rules are not clear.
4. Revisiting elections laws
Even while campaign finance measures and practice in the Philippines is seen as a model by other countries, what may be good on paper may not necessarily be the same when it comes to implementation. While strides have been observed in the past decade, many challenges still hound campaign finance affecting its implementation and its ability to hold public officials accountable.
Election reform advocates like Ramon Casiple, executive director of IPER, have pushed for the passage of a political party reform bill for years. For Casiple, the future of campaign finance will always depend on the future of politics in the country.
The bill introduced in Congress covers anti-turncoatism, state subsidy for parties, and the strict enforcement of campaign finance regulation. Passing such laws, as in all legal reforms, greatly depends on lawmakers of course. The reality is that if an agency or institution does not perform its role, it would also be difficult for the Comelec to do its work.
The legislative branch will also need to look into conflicting laws that have proven to be a cause for candidates to be “creative” in campaign finance reporting or legitimately allows them to exclude legitimate campaign spending in the equation.
RA 7166 sets the spending cap at P10.00 (USD 0.2) per voter for those running for president and vice president, and P3.00 (USD 0.06) per voter for those vying for other posts. Candidates who are not supported by any political party may be allowed to spend P5.00 (USD 0.1) for every voter. This small amount, many electoral reform advocates say, is no longer realistic.
RA 7166 also sets a fixed period for campaign activities and “any election campaign or partisan political activity for and against any candidate outside of the campaign period herein provided is prohibited and shall be considered as an election offense.” The campaign period is prescribed to commence 90 days and 45 days before the day of the election for national and local posts, respectively.
Unfortunately, legal interpreters including the Comelec itself, argue that a person is not considered an official candidate without an official filing of candidacy. This argument implies that even as “unofficial candidates” engage in “indirect campaign activities” these cannot be considered as pre-campaigning.
Still and all, the development of campaign-finance awareness in the Philippines has helped increase the demand for reform. This should remain a strategy – that there should be a demand in such a way that policymakers would have no other choice but to heed the demand.
5. Forging and sustaining collaborations between and among elections watchdogs and news media
The Philippine experience in monitoring campaign finance took a significant shift when election watchdogs and the news media made it high on their respective agendas. The PAP consortium for instance was regarded as key source of campaign finance information during the campaigns. This was made possible through the support of aid agencies. The work of individual election watchdogs continued beyond the life of the consortium, but efforts to sustain such collaboration is worth revisiting.