Liberal Party (LP) standard bearer Senator Benigno Aquino III and the Nacionalista Party (NP) have both exceeded the allotted time for campaign advertisements in one major television channel, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) revealed Friday.
In an interview with reporters, Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said that Aquino has already used up 291.5 minutes of broadcast time while NP has already incurred 256.5 minutes of airtime on ABS-CBN between February 9 to March 12.
"They have maxed out their limits... everyone else is way below the limits for this particular channel," Jimenez said.
But Jimenez noted that NP standard bearer Senator Manuel Villar Jr. has only used up 27.75 minutes of his broadcast time on the same channel. On the other hand, Aquino's party LP has yet to use up any of its allotted airtime on any television channel.
He said the poll body has yet to compute the time used up by candidates and parties on GMA 7 because the television network has yet to submit all the needed broadcast logs. But he said candidates and parties have all yet to max out their time credits on other television channels.
Rules
Resolution 8758 or the Fair Election Practices Act restricts national candidates and parties to only 120 minutes of broadcast advertising on each local and cable television channel and 180 minutes on each radio station for the whole campaign period. Local candidates, on the other hand, will only be allowed 60 minutes of advertisements on television and 90 minutes on radio.
The campaign period for national candidates began on February 9 and for local candidates, on March 26. Both campaign periods will end on May 8.
Jimenez said the Comelec en banc has decided to credit the time used up by campaign commercials to those listed under the "paid for" clause in the advertisement.
"You don't actually divide the time (for combined ads), credit it whole whoever is said in the paid for clause," he said.
He explained that even if only one candidate was shown in an advertisement, it won't be automatically be deducted on the candidate's broadcast time. He said that it would be deducted on whoever the advertisement was paid for, just like how NP shouldered most of Villar's broadcast time.
Sanctions
Jimenez said that they plan to inform the concerned parties that they have in fact exceeded their broadcast limit. "We will warn them from airing further ads on these stations... if they insist, that will leave them open to legal action," he said.
If they continue airing in the channel where they have maxed out their time, he said that they will report this to the Comelec law department and allow for "due process."
"We will give them opportunity to explain," he said.
Violation of Resolution 8758 constitutes an election offense, which is punishable by disqualification, disenfranchisement and one to six years imprisonment. But in the case of NP, the party may be fined not lower than P10,000.
Jimenez said they are also studying the possibility of holding the network liable for the excess in broadcast time.
In the mean time, he said Villar may use up his own airtime credits while Aquino may still use the broadcast time allotted for LP for advertisements airing on ABS-CBN. "Nagkabaliktad lang sila ng stratergy (They just changed strategies)," he said.
He also said that they have the option of campaigning on channels other than ABS-CBN and GMA. — RSJ/LBG, GMANews.TV
