Death Stars, Sith Lords, black hats lurk
by Ed Lingao
When a supposed Internet screenshot featuring Villar began circulating via email last February, Netizens were uncertain if they should sound the alarm, or just shrug it off as one candidate taking the campaign to an all new level.
This particular screenshot depicted a popular pornographic site. On the left side of the page was a young lady in the act of showing off her bountiful assets. On the right was the now familiar orange banner ad for Villar, with the Nacionalista Party standard bearer flashing a really toothy grin.
Election laws lost in cyberspace
by Jaemark Tordecilla and Justine Espina-Letargo
These days, the number of Filipino Internet users is pegged at around 24 million and mobile phone users at around 63 million. Not surprisingly, candidates for both national and local posts have taken interest on those figures, and have been busy putting up complex, interactive websites of their own, even as they litter popular online publications, blogs, and social networks with political propaganda. Text-blasting, or the sending of unsolicited SMS messages, appears to be on the rise as well.
by Ed Lingao
IN THE unnervingly expensive race for the Philippine presidency, the candidates who splurge are those less open to discussing their campaign spending, while candidates who spend the least are the most open to talking about their finances.
The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) managed to ask most of the presidential candidates about their positions on various issues involving campaign finance: where they get their campaign money, their major donors, and their expenses.
No free pass for pre-campaign pol ads
by Malou Mangahas
THEY probably thought they got a free pass to flood television with political ads beyond the airtime and spending limits set in law, having run commercials before the 90-day campaign period could start last February 9.
But the top candidates for president and vice president, as well as those who donated and bankrolled their pre-campaign ads, had better think again, according to lawyers and officials of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).
Curious, creative contracts skirt law?
by Karol Anne M. Ilagan
JUST a mere month into the 90-day official campaign period, three presidential candidates have already used up more than half of their allowed ad airtime in the country’s two top networks.
This is even as data from media monitoring agency Nielsen Media indicate a relatively tempered ad-spending among the candidates, compared to the three months prior to the start of the campaign period.
The mysteries of money & politics
by Malou Mangahas
A BILLIONAIRE and four other millionaires lead the pack of those who want to serve as the15th president of the Philippines, all invariably swearing by an anti-poverty platform, and with some purposely harking on their poverty roots to spin and curry favor with majority of voters who are poor.
by Sheila S. Coronel
EIGHTEEN years after the fall of Marcos, Congress is not becoming a more representative institution. In fact, today’s legislators are richer now than ever before. While poverty levels since 1986 have remained at roughly between 30 and 40 percent of the population, lawmakers have become wealthier.
