Category: Campaign Finance

The gender mix: More women voters, still more men in power

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By Davinci Maru, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

IN TRADITIONAL SOCIETIES, the home remains the primary domain of women. They are often relegated to supposedly feminine roles as child-bearers and housekeepers, or as all-around nurturer of families.

Exactly 79 years ago, on April 30, 1937, Filipino women gained the right to vote and to run for public office. But it was 30 years earlier or in 1907 when Filipino men of some education and property claimed that right.

Starting 2004, a new trend has emerged — that of the number of women outpacing the men in the league of registered voters.

Total RV by sex

During the 2004 general elections, there were 17,014,643 registered female voters and only 16,495,449 male voters, for a gap of 3.1 percent.

In the 2007 legislative and local elections, the difference was slightly lower at 2.6 percent. There were 16,503,110 registered female voters compared to 16,084,962 registered male voters.

In the 2010 elections, however, the gender gap rose to five percent in favor of the women. There were 19,068,323 registered female voters and 18,155,722 registered male voters.

In the May 2013 elections, there were 27,406,600 registered female voters than men, 26,379,623 voters, for a variance of 3.9 percent.

For the May 2016 elections, there are 28,052,138 registered female voters and only 26,311,706 male voters, a sharp 6.6 percent difference.

In 2013, the top provinces with more registered female voters than male voters were the National Capital Region (NCR), Cavite, Cebu, Rizal, and Laguna.

Girl Power

In contrast though, some of the provinces beset with conflict, such as North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, and Maguindanao, registered bigger numbers of male voters.

Male Domination

For Filipino women. exercising their right of suffrage came much later. They were denied their right to vote and deemed not fit to join the affairs of the government, under the country’s first election law or Act 1582. They were allowed to cast their vote for the first time only in 1937.

Article V, Section 1 of the 1935 Constitution stated that “the National Assembly shall extend the right of suffrage to women, if in a plebiscite which shall be held for that purpose within two years after the adoption of this Constitution, not less than three hundred thousand women possessing the necessary qualifications shall vote affirmatively on the question.”

On April 30, 1937, the date set for the plebiscite, a total of 447,725 women cast their votes in favor of women’s suffrage.

In truth, however, politics, remains a man’s world in the Philippines. Still more men than women hold the reins of power, on all levels of officialdom.

In a statement dated April 30, 2015, the Philippine Commission on Women (PWC) notes that, “statistics show that women hold 25 percent of seats in the Senate and 27 percent in the House of Representatives.”

“At the local level,” it added, “women comprise 22.5 percent of gubernatorial posts, 18.5 percent of vice gubernatorial posts, and 20.86 percent of mayoralty posts.”

There has been some major improvement with respect to women’s rights in the political landscape, but many women in power still come from the ranks of traditional political families, serving as benchwarmers for the menfolk of their clans.

Of the 44,448 candidates in 2013, only 18 percent or 7.921 were women. Of the 33 candidates for senator, only eight were women. And of the 630 candidates who ran for district representatives, only one in six or 125 were women.

What’s evident in the May 2016 elections, though, is that women have become a significant, discerning community of voters.

Currently, only three women are seeking the highest offices of the land – Grace Poe and Miriam Defensor-Santiago are two of five candidates contesting the presidency, and Leni Robredo, one of six candidates for vice-president. — PCIJ, March 2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ‘vulnerable’ amongst us

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By Davinci Maru, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

THEY MAY be fewer and weaker but their right to vote is just as important as that all voters share.

Their sorry situation is a context for the May 2016 elections. In large measure, their being “vulnerable voters” derives from the internal conflict and the poverty that afflict us all in the nation.

As of the last elections in October 2013 we voted our barangay officials, records from the Commission on Elections (Comelec) showed a total of 626,236 registered voters with disability, and another 339,144 who are illiterate or with had little or no formal schooling and could not read or write.

And they come from areas that are also the most vulnerable if not to cheating and fraud, then to other irregularities that may visit the balloting this year.

The big numbers of persons with disability (PWDs) among registered voters are from the conflict-affected regions of Mindanao.

WITH DISABILITY

Interestingly, these provinces are also considered by then authorities as election watch-list areas (EWAs) in the May 2016 elections. They include the province of Maguindanao that has witnessed politically motivated incidents and threats from armed groups in recent elections.

Meanwhile, Comelec data also revealed that big numbers of illiterate registered voters, as of the October 2013 elections, are from provinces with the highest poverty incidence among families from 2006 to 2012.

ILLITERATE

These provinces, according to the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC), include Samar, Zamboanga del Norte, Negros Oriental, Sultan Kudarat, and Saranggani.

Republic Act No. 10366 “An Act Authorizing the Commission on Elections to Establish Precincts Assigned to Accessible Polling Places Exclusively for Persons with Disabilities and Senior Citizens” was enacted on August 30,2013.

Section 2 of the law says that PWDs refer to “qualified voters who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which, in interaction with various barriers, may hinder their full and effective participation in the electoral processes on an equal basis with others.”

“It may likewise refer to qualified voters whose physical inability to accomplish the ballot, on Election Day, is manifest, obvious, or visible,” it adds.

As of February 2011, the National Household Targeting System For Poverty Reduction of the Department of Social Welfare and Development said there were 4,466,649 households in the country with PWDs.

This number excludes as yet those form the Set 1 areas of the government’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps or Conditional Cash Transfer Program), or 333,281 households from the same poorest provinces of the country who had been served from March to December 2008.

For its part, the National Statistics Office (NSO) said that as of 2010 Census of Population and Housing, of 71.5 million Filipinos aged 10 years old and above, 97.5 percent or 69.8 million were literate or could read and write. This was better than the literacy rate of 92.3 percent recorded in the 2000 census.

The flip-side though is that this number also means that across the nation.1.7 million or 2.5 percent of all Filipinos 10 years or older are unlettered or could not read or write.

The National Capital Region or Metro Manila leads with a 99.7 percent literacy rate.

Seven other regions also performed better than the national rate — CALABARZON or Region IV-A (99.3 percent), Central Luzon or region III (99.2 percent), Ilocos Region or Region I (99.1 percent), Bicol Region or Region V (98.5 percent), Western Visayas or Region VI (97.9 percent), Central Visayas or Region VII (97.7 percent), and Caraga (97.7 percent).

Yet still, ARMM scored the lowest literacy rate at 82.5 percent. Among the provinces, Sulu had the lowest literacy rate at 76.6 percent.

Among the regions, ARMM, too, had the lowest school attendance at 59.3 percent, and among the provinces, Basilan, at 52.8 percent, as of the 2010 census. — PCIJ, March 2016

A pandemic of TV ads: How, where, when 4 wannabe presidents did it

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ALMOST LIKE A PLAGUE, the political ads of four candidates for president, five for vice president, and two dozen other candidates for senator and local posts have started to assault our TV screens starting March 2015, or 14 months ahead of the May 9, 2016 elections.

All together worth P6.7 billion, by media’s published rate cards, these pre-campaign ads have turned this year’s balloting into the priciest ever in the country’s electoral history.

Who paid for the ads? The candidates have variably said that their unnamed donors, and/or portions of their own money, covered the expense.
But why ever must donors part with their millions when only the candidates stand to gain from political ads? And how, some citizens have asked, should the candidates pay back these donors who gave them not just money but also a quick ride to instant celebrity and fame on TV?

By Nielsen Media’s monitoring reports, overkill is an understatement. It does not suffice to describe the stupendously rich pre-campaign ad spend of four candidates for president — Jejomar Binay of the United Nationalist Alliance; Rodrigo Duterte of PDP-Laban; Grace Poe of the Galing at Puso slate; and Manuel ‘Mar’ Roxas II of the Liberal Party.

Specific to the last detail, Nielsen Media’s reports enroll the day, date, and time, and in which TV programs the ads aired; their rate card cost at the time of broadcast; and which versions of the candidates’ ad materials ran.

So the people may know, PCIJ has decided to reveal the full details of Nielsen Media’s reports on the TV ads that featured four candidates for president as “advertiser” and “product” from March 2015 to January 2016.

2 firms paid pol ads, defy SEC ruling vs. partisanship

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By the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

TWO COMPANIES have done what they shouldn’t and couldn’t have.

First, they separately paid for political ads for and against two candidates in the May 2016 elections. They should not have done that. According to a ruling of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), no corporate entity, Filipino or foreign, should donate money to the candidates or to any partisan political activity.

But then both companies could not have done it. There is little to show in their latest financial statements that they could. Both companies, as of their 2014 filing with the SEC, appear to be in the red, with little or no operation at all.

The first firm, AB Ison Pilot Trading & Construction Corp., is listed in the Nielsen Media monitoring reports to be the “advertiser” of a total of P8,835,162 worth of pre-campaign political ads, by published media rate cards, that aired on national television in January 2016.

These 21 ad spots criticized Vice President Jejomar Binay, candidate for president of the United Nationalist Alliance or UNA, for his failure to explain his supposedly numerous bank accounts and the allegedly overpriced contracts that the City of Makati had awarded during his stint as mayor.

The second firm, Patriot Freedom Air, Inc., was listed as the “payor” in three advertising contracts signed with ABS-CBN network in February 2016 for the benefit of independent candidate for senator Francis Tolentino, former chairman of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority or MMDA.

The three ad contracts that ABS-CBN submitted to the Commission on Elections listed Patriot Freedom Air as payor or “advertiser” of the ads worth a total of P12,567,772.

This amount consisted of:

  • P964,873, for twenty 30-second ad spots for Tolentino that aired from Feb. 9 to 29 on ABS-CBN’s regional TV stations in Baguio, Lipa in Batangas, Cebu, Davao, General Santos, Iloilo, and Naga City.
  • P9,971,628 for twelve 30-second ad spots for Tolentino that aired between Feb. 9 and 29 on “TV Patrol” and the prime-time teleserye “FPJ’s Ang Probinsyano” and “Dolce Amore”, and the variety show “Pilipinas Got Talent”; and
  • P1,631,271 for three 30-second ads for Tolentino that aired on ABS-CBN’s Sunday variety program “Showtime” last Feb. 13, 20, and 27, with each spot valued at P543,907,000.

Firms may not donate

SEC Opinion No. 15-08 issued on July 27, 2015, says that it is taboo for all companies to donate any amounts to candidates and political parties.

Signed by Camilo S. Correa, SEC general counsel, “by authority of the Commission En Banc,” the ruling states, “Section 36(9) of the Corporation Code imposes an absolute prohibition for corporations, both foreign and domestic, from giving any donations to any political party, candidate, or for the purpose of any partisan political activity.” (underscoring supplied in SEC Opinion No. 15-08)

In Section 144, the Corporation Code or Batas Pambansa Blg. 68 says that “violations of any of the provisions of this Code or its amendments not otherwise specifically penalized therein shall be punished by a fine of not less than one thousand pesos but not more than ten thousand pesos, or by imprisonment for not less than 30 days but nor more than five years, or both, in the discretion of the court.”

The same section of the Code, however, says, “If the violation is committed by a corporation, the same may, after notice and hearing, be dissolved in appropriate proceedings before the Securities and Exchange Commission.”

Ex-Makati employee

AB Ison registered with the SEC on Sept. 27, 1977, and listed its office address at 7029 Wilson St. Pio Del Pilar, Makati City.

SEC records showed that as of Aug. 31, 1998, six names are listed as incorporators, with Pedro Ison serving as treasurer. According to SEC papers, Cynthia Ison holds the designation of corporate secretary, but is not among the incorporators who include, apart from Pedro Ison:

  • Luis R. Ignacio of Gapan, Nueva Ecija;
  • Jacinto S. Navarro of Guagua, Pampanga;
  • Lorenzo R. Rapanan of Villasis, Pangasinan;
  • Enrique C. Rivera of Cablao, Nueva Ecija; and
  • Arturo R. Rivada of 3776 Gen. Mascardo, Makati City

In addition, Arthur Ison, Michael Gonzales, Fernando Ablaza, and Amalia Gonzales, were listed as subscribers owning varying amount of company stocks.

In its 2013 Statement of Financial Position, AB Ison declared having a total of P11,112,485 worth of current assets, including P 2.5 million in cash and cash equivalents. It also reported non-current assets composed of property and equipment and reserves of P25,229,344, bringing the firm’s total assets to more than P36 million.

Still, AB Ison’s cash position is just a fourth of the P8.84-million value of the pre-campaign political ad spots against Binay that the company acquired in January 2016.

The amount it splurged on its political ads against Binay is twice to thrice more than its P3.466,800 net profit from operation in 2013, and P2,8982,319 in 2012, according to AB Ison’s records at the SEC.

MMDA contractor

For three weeks now, PCIJ has tried to reach AB Ison President Arthur Ison by phone and letter for comment, but he has yet to respond as of press time. His secretary said Ison’s “busy schedule” was the reason why he could not respond to PCIJ’s request.

PCIJ research meanwhile reveals that AB Ison, through Arthur Ison, has been engaged since 2012 in a private-public partnership project with the MMDA for the cleaning of esteros in Metro Manila. San Miguel Brewery Corp. and RM Gomez Construction were also involved in this project that was supposed to be a step toward making Metro Manila “climate-resilient.”

Photos of the Memorandum of Agreement signing between AB Ison President Arthur B. Ison and then MMDA Chair Francis Tolentino seemed to be unavailable from the MMDA website despite the presence of a webpage for the event, but PCIJ managed to get the photo below after scraping uploaded MMDA references.

The Department of Labor and Employment had also listed AB Ison in 2012 as one of its accredited contractors and subcontractors in the National Capital Region.

AB Ison may have also had other projects, based on the claims of a certain Marianne Joy Machitar in her LinkedIn account. According to Machitar’s LinkedIn profile, she worked for AB Ison from November 2009 to September 2011 as Project Engineer/Safety Officer, and that she “handled projects of well-known clients in the Philippines like Rockwell Land Corporation, Vista Land Corporation, Picar Holdings Inc. and Ayala Land Inc.” during her stint in the firm.

Machitar worked for DPWH Surigao del Sur for two years and eight months after leaving AB Ison, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Worked under Binay

Interestingly, the archives of the Makati City government’s website show that Arthur Ison’s father and the firm’s founding president, Pedro Ison, had served as the municipal secretary of Makati for more than 26 years, even before Makati was declared separate from Rizal province.

A municipal resolution extended Ison’s term as municipal secretary despite reaching the forced retirement age of 65, supposedly because his service was still needed “especially during the period when the Local Government Code is to take effect on January 1992.”

Makati’s vice mayor at the time, Augusto V. Pangan served as temporary presiding officer, because Makati’s then mayor, Jejomar Binay, was not present at the gathering. The same resolution in favor of Pedro Ison also urged the city council to “make strong representations with the Civil Service Commission” so that Ison’s term would be extended for six more months.

The Makati City portal listed Pedro Ison as one of the “prominent residents” of Pio del Pilar, Makati City.

Zero revenue

As for Patriot Freedom Air, the receipts that ABS-CBN issued for the ad contracts worth nearly P12.6 million listed the company’s taxpayer identification number to be 008-850-909 and address at 502 Greenhills Mansion, Annapolis Street, San Juan City.

Tolentino; Rizalina Hombre, media director of his ad placement agency, AdmediaEdge; and Jaewoo Chung, president of Patriot Freedom Air, signed the documents covering the ad buys.

PCIJ checked out the firm’s records at the Securities and Exchange Commission or SEC and found no evidence at all that it could afford to finance the former MMDA chief’s political ads.

Patriot Freedom is a stock corporation that registered with the SEC only on Sept. 1, 2014 and is said to be engaged in “tourist assistance activities.”

Jae Woo Chung is named as president in the company’s papers with the SEC, with his personal address shown to be 502 Greenhills Mansion. The other incorporators and officers of the firm are Angieneth Alma, Alex Ico, Twinkle Joy Sagun (treasurer), and Jean Ella P. Ico (corporate secretary). All five are listed to be Filipinos.

As of 2014, Patriot Freedom’s authorized capital was only P250,000, and its paid-up capital, only P62,500. As of Dec. 31, 2014, it reported to the SEC zero revenues, zero administrative expenses, and thus zero net income.

From its paid-up capital of P62,500, Patriot Freedom ended the year 2014 with only P57,250, on account of a decrease in current assets of P4,950. — With research and reporting by Vino Lucero and Malou Mangahas, PCIJ, March 2016

Pol ads bill vs. net worth in SALN: Top bets in debt, deficit spending?

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By Malou Mangahas, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

Last of Three Parts

CAN we trust them with the public purse?

At the rate they are splurging billions of pesos on political ads, with nothing or little to show in their asset records as their own spending capacity, the candidates for president and vice president in the May 2016 elections are possibly the least smart amongst us when it comes to math and money.

In truth, if they have been dipping into their pockets for pesos for their ads, nearly all of them would now be in grave deficit spending status. Or even in the throes of bankruptcy.

Altogether, four of the five seeking the presidency, six seeking the vice presidency, 22 aspiring to be senators, and few dozen local and party-list hopefuls have acquired a record P6.69 billion worth of pre-campaign political ads, mostly on television, and some on radio and the newspapers.

Three wannabe presidents – Manuel ‘Mar’ Roxas II of the Liberal Party (LP), Jejomar ‘Jojo’ Binay of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), and Grace Poe of the Galing at Puso (GP) slate — had even made it to the Billion-Peso Club of ad spenders ahead of the official 90-day campaign period that started on Feb. 9, 2016.

According to Nielsen Media’s monitoring reports, as of Jan. 31, 2016 and by the rate card of media agencies, the political ads featuring these three as “advertiser” and “product” had reached the billionth mark: P1,050,065,096 for Binay, P1,016,414,123 for Poe; and P969,173,267 for Roxas.

And while he decided to run only in December 2016, a fourth candidate for president, Rodrigo Duterte of the PDP-Laban Party, had also recorded a bill of P146,351,131 for his pre-campaign ads.

Six wannabe vice presidents, meanwhile, have incurred similarly significant expenses for their solo ads:

  • P419,002,456 for Duterte’s official running mate Alan Peter Cayetano;
  • P273,856,544 for LP’s Maria Leonor ‘Leni’ Robredo;
  • P252,503,856 for Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr.;
  • P29,673,341 for UNA’s Gregorio ‘Gringo’ Honasan II;
  • P8,953,380 for Antonio Trillanes IV; and
  • P2,776,000 for GP’s Francis ‘Chiz’ Escudero.

Caps in law, net worth

Even then, they are probably poised to splurge millions of pesos more to get elected. Election laws allow a candidate for national office to spend during the official campaign period up to P10 per voter, or a maximum of P540 million for the nation’s 54.3 million registered voters, to cover all his or her allowable expenses.

But the 2014 statements of assets, liabilities, and net worth (SALN) of the candidates show no evidence that any of them can finance multi-million-peso campaigns, let alone billion-peso ones. Nearly all of them have little to modest net worth and even the more affluent ones would have gone bankrupt by now if they financed their pre-campaign ads on their own.

For the candidates for president, here’s what their 2014 SALN numbers, compared to their pre-campaign ad expenses, reveal:

  • Roxas declared a net worth of P202,080,453 and cash on hand/in bank of P24,833,667. He incurred pre-campaign ad expenses of P969,173,267. If he spent his own money, he would be on deficit spending by P767,092,814.
  • Binay declared a net worth of P60,250,983 and cash on hand/in bank of P38,843,866. He incurred pre-campaign ad expenses of P1,050,065,096. He would be on deficit spending by P989,804,113.
  • Poe declared a net worth of P89,464,819 and cash on hand/in bank of P1,071,406. She incurred pre-campaign ad expenses of P1,016,414,123. She would be on deficit spending by P926,949,304.
  • Duterte declared a net worth of P21,971,733 and cash on hand/in bank of P13,846,733. He incurred pre-campaign ad expenses of P146,351,131. He would be on deficit spending by P124,379,398.

Wannabe vice

Four of the six candidates for vice president declared much less in net worth, and Marcos, a little more. All together though, they all would be on the path to penury, going by their own expensive ad buys:

  • Robredo declared a net worth of P8,032,124 and cash on hand/in bank of P8,049,124. She incurred pre-campaign ad expenses of P273,856,544. She would be on deficit spending by P265,824,420.
  • Honasan declared a net worth of P21,225,616 and cash on hand/in bank of P11,058,816. He incurred pre-campaign ad expenses of P29,673,341. He would be on deficit spending by P8,447,625.
  • Marcos declared a net worth of P200,598,008 and cash on hand/in bank of P8,000,000. He incurred pre-campaign ad expenses of P252,503,856. He would be on deficit spending by P51,905,848.
  • Cayetano declared a net worth of P23,314,540 and cash on hand/in bank of P8,500,000. He incurred pre-campaign ad expenses of P419,002,456. He would be on deficit spending by P395,687,916.
  • Trillanes declared a net worth of P5,549,000 and cash on hand/in bank of P2,300,000. He incurred pre-campaign ad expenses of P8,953,380. He would on deficit spending by P3,404,380.

By these metrics, only two — Escudero and People’s Reform Party candidate for president Miriam Defensor Santiago — remain in surplus spending status. Escudero had acquired, by Nielsen Media’s data as of Jan. 31, 2016, too few ads; Santiago had not run any pre-campaign ads at all.

Escudero in 2014 declared a net worth of P7,565,029 and cash on hand/in bank of P3,237,947. He incurred pre-campaign ad expenses of P2,776,000. Assuming he used his personal funds, he would be on surplus spending by P4,790,029.

Santiago, meanwhile, declared a net worth of P73,033,539 and cash on hand/in bank of P48,480,291 in her SALN for 2014. — With research and reporting by Vino Lucero, Davinci Maru, and Earl Parreno, PCIJ, March 2016