The campaign period doesn’t arrived yet, but the four leading presidentiables spent already a total of 1.6B on their TV advertisements according to the monitoring done by Media research company, Nielsen Philippines.
The results showed that between Jan. 1 and Nov. 30 2015, Binay’s spending reached P595,713,000.
Sen. Grace Poe came second with P448,166,000, followed by Liberal Party standard bearer Mar Roxas with P424,870,000 and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte with P115,423,000.
Among vice presidential candidates, the biggest spender is Duterte’s running mate Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano with P398,288,000, followed by Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. with P103,429,000.
The other vice presidential hopefuls and their TV ad spending are Roxas‚” running mate Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo, P91,602,000; and Binay‚’s teammate Sen. Gregorio Honasan, P43,580,000.
Poe‘s vice presidential bet Sen. Francis Escudero is listed as having spent only P30,000.
Those running for the presidency, vice presidency and Senate positions spent a combined P3.538 billion on TV ads last year.
The figures were based on the ‚“2015 rate cards‚” or gross ad prices of major television networks.
TV stations are known to give huge discounts to regular clients and advertising agencies.
According to longtime election lawyer Romulo Macalintal, there is no crime such as premature campaigning and the law does not ban candidates from placing media ads before the start of the official campaign.
The monitoring report noted that the ad placements were timed with the quarterly voter preference surveys of major pollsters.
Meanwhile, Vice President Jejomar Binay denied reports that he is the biggest spender on television advertisements in 2015 among the presidential candidates.
“I am not the top ad spender,” Binay said, adding that his friends funded his television advertisements.
Binay insisted that there are other candidates for the 2016 elections who spend more than him.
(Source: Philippine Star)