MoneyPolitics Online update:
The 2013 campaign

POLITICS in the Philippines is stuck in a three-year cycle of elections.

But it shouldn’t be. Politics should be an everyday affair for Filipinos. Politics, after all, should not be about electing people every three years; it should be about guarding and guiding the people we elect, and making them accountable to the people who put them into office.

This is one of the reasons why the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism maintains its MoneyPolitics Online database. For decades, we have been rooted in the perception that politics is the carnival of personalities that we just need to choose from. But really, politics should be about numbers and figures – how much do politicians spend, how much do donors give, where do they spend their pork barrel, who benefits from these projects, etc. The list goes on.

In the latest update of the MoneyPolitics Online database, the PCIJ has uploaded the data collected by the Commission on Elections from the Statements of Election Contributions and Expenses submitted by candidates in the 2013 elections. The data is very rich in meanings and implications – who gave how much to this candidate, and how much was spent by that candidate from his own pocket, and even how much did a candidate “earn” from the election contributions he received in 2013.

Visit the PCIJ’s 2013 Campaign Finance database here.