As early as January last year, Sen. Imee Marcos already aired 271 TV and radio ad spots worth P21 million, based on published rate cards or before discounts.
Every month since then, the presidential sister appeared on Filipino voters’ TV screens and spoke in radio ads across the country. She gradually increased the number of her advertisements until she had 1,145 ad spots worth P303 million in September alone.
Marcos’s political ads from January to September 2024 amounted to P1 billion based on rate cards, according to data obtained by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) from the Nielsen Ad Intel.
The amount is staggering, Jean Encinas Franco, associate professor at the University of the Philippines’ Department of Political Science, told PCIJ.
“It gives me a sense they are already using their own money,” she said. “Candidates cannot use their own money. When you have a stake in election spending, all the more you will be corrupt.”
Campaigns have traditionally relied on donors, usually businesses, to fund election activities. Increasingly, however, the country has seen candidates using personal funds or relying on family members for support.
“It’s because the candidates are businessmen themselves,” said former Commission on Elections commissioner Luie Guia.
Marcos was first elected to the upper chamber of Congress in 2019, and is now seeking a second term. She is the third in the family to occupy a seat in the chamber, following her father, the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, and her brother President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
The Marcos clan continues to dominate politics in Ilocos Norte.
Breaching P1B
Marcos is one of two senatorial candidates who aired ads worth P1 billion over the nine-month period before the filing of certificates of candidacy (CoCs) in October 2024.
The other candidate is Las Piñas Rep. Camille Villar, the youngest and only daughter of billionaire real estate mogul Manuel Villar Jr., the country’s richest man, according to Forbes Magazine. He is a former senator and served as Senate president.
Unlike Marcos, Villar did not start advertising in January. She had ads worth P100,000 in March but that was it, until August or two months before the CoC filing.
All of a sudden, she flooded TV and radio stations across the country with her ads. She had ads worth P598 million in August and P477 million in September.
The ads of Marcos and Villar accounted for about 50% of the total P4.1 billion worth of political advertisements ahead of the CoC filing.
These amounts do not include the cost of producing these advertisements, their separate social media campaigns, the maintenance of their campaign offices, and salaries of campaign staff, among other regular expenses.
As of December 2024, Villar was already the top spender on Facebook, the most popular social media platform in the country. She recorded paying Meta P13 million to boost her posts.
Villar is the fourth in her family to seek a seat in the Senate, following her father, her mother Senator Cynthia and her brother Senator Mark, all of whom also recorded heavy ad spending during their campaigns.
Both Cynthia and Mark reported spending personal funds to run their campaigns.
In 2013, the year Cynthia succeeded her husband in the Senate, she reported spending P133.9 million. Out of this amount, P131.6 million was drawn from her personal funds and only P2.6 million from other donors.
Mark joined her mother in the Senate in 2022. He declared spending P131.8 million during his campaign, based on his statement of contributions and expenditures (SOCE). He received zero contributions and paid the entire amount out of his personal funds.
Awareness, conversion and survey cliffhangers
There could be several motivations behind candidates’ heavy ad spending, according to PCIJ’s interviewees.
Marcos may not be satisfied with her survey position in the second half of the winning circle, said Arjan Aguirre, assistant professor at the Ateneo de Manila University.
“The closer you are in the 12th place, the smaller the margin there is that separates you from the 13th placer. No one wants to be in that place in a Philippine senatorial election,” Aguirre said.
He said her ads are intended to increase her “awareness” among voters so that she can later convert them to support her.
“For Villar, it is safe to say here that they just want her to win by raising her awareness level and later close the gap between that and the voting preference level,” he said.
Awareness and conversion are jargons in product advertising, which recognized the importance of brand recall when consumers are making decisions about products they buy.
In election campaigns, candidates become the products and name recall is the goal.
Competing against media celebrities
In a race packed by media celebrities who have the advantage of name recall, Marcos and Villar are not the only scions of political clans who ramped up ad spending ahead of October 2024 CoC filing.
Makati City Mayor Abigail Binay, Sen. Francis Tolentino and former Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos aired ads worth P300 million to P500 million.
These clan members are competing against former news broadcasters Erwin and his brother Ben Tulfo; TV hosts and comedians Vicente “Tito” Sotto II, a former Senate president, and Willie Revillame; boxing champion Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao; and actors Bong Revilla and Lito Lapid.
In comparison, these media celebrities record little to zero ad spending during the nine-month period.
A similar pattern can be seen in the candidates’ spending on Facebook, the country’s most popular social media platform.
Imee’s higher ambition?
There’s another possible motivation that Senator Marcos might have, said Aguirre.
“Imee might be preparing for 2028. Midterms are usually for those people who are eyeing for higher positions like president or vice president, since they use the Senate election to allow them to gauge their ability to generate votes at the national level,” he said.
However, pre-election surveys conducted after the CoC filing show that the two top ad spenders in the May 2025 senatorial elections remain in vulnerable survey positions, hanging by a thread in the “Magic 12” winning circle.
They ranked 12th to 14th in the December 2024 Social Weather Stations surveys, with 21% voter preference.
Marcos and Villar were also statistically tied in the November 2024 Pulse Asia survey, ranking 10th to 15th, with 37.5% and 36.5% voter preference, respectively.
In the next four months before the May 12 midterm elections, Guia said other candidates are expected to attempt to match the heavy ad spending of their rivals, setting the stage for another expensive election.
Guia said voters should ask: “Why are the candidates spending huge sums to win elections? The burden of explaining should be on the candidate.The public should demand it.” — PCIJ.org