They must also reveal their supporters only a month after Election Day.
Only just a few can donate such large amounts…. so that you aren’t any longer accountable to the individuals who voted for you. You turn into more accountable to the one that actually financed you
Duterte has cemented himself because the clear favorite in Monday’s elections, portraying himself as a frugal, anti-establishment politician who is hard enough to defeat the elites.
“When I become president, by the grace of God, I will serve the people, not you,” Duterte told reporters last week, referring to the elite.
But in the ultimate stages of the campaign, Duterte, who as mayor of Davao within the south, is anticipated to earn just below $2,000 a month, was hit with allegations that hundreds of thousands of dollars were transferred to secret bank accounts.
He initially denied that any hidden accounts existed. After the journalist paid for them, he admitted they existed and that on his birthday two years ago, 193.7 million pesos ($4.2 million) had been paid, almost 10 times his declared wealth.
All candidates have support on each side of the fence. If they are saying they haven’t got it, they’re lying
“It just means I have a lot of rich friends,” he said, declining to disclose who they were.
Asked during an earlier nationally televised debate to call his campaign donors, Duterte gave a mocking response, replying to “Emilio Aguinaldo,” the leader of the Philippines’ Nineteenth-century war for independence from colonial power Spain.
Likewise, his rivals have felt no obligation to inform voters who their supporters are, let alone how much they’re paid.
It is widely rumored that Senator Grace Poe, who has only been in politics for 3 years and positions herself as a lilac-white poster child for change and honesty, has the support of taipans Eduardo Cojuangco and Ramon Ang.
They run San Miguel Corporation, one in every of the biggest conglomerates within the country.
Cojuangco was one in every of dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ cronies until the 1986 “People Power” revolution sent the strongman into exile within the United States.
Cojuangco escaped on the identical plane, but returned three years later and continued to construct his business empire while running the political party that supports Poe today.
Asked to verify that Cojuangco and Ang were financing her campaign, Poe only replied on the whole terms that there was nothing incorrect with accepting money from people related to Marcos.
“All candidates have support on both sides of the fence. If they say they don’t have it, they’re lying,” Poe replied.
She said that by law, her sponsors and the donations they made would be disclosed after the election.
Marcos’ son and namesake, who wants to cement the family’s extraordinary political comeback with Monday’s election as vice president, also only referred to his legal obligations when asked in an interview to reveal his supporters.
Ferdinand Marcos Jr., whose late father was accused of looting $10 billion from the national treasury during his two-decade rule, rejected the notion that he would be beholden to his secret donors.
“That would mean you bought the politician. I don’t think I would let something like that happen to me,” Marcos Jnr said.
In the Philippines, campaign spending is to be capped at 10 pesos per voter, which would mean a maximum budget for any presidential candidate of about $11 million this year.
In some advanced Western democracies, donations are usually limited to relatively small amounts in order to encourage a larger share of the population to become their representative.
But in the Philippines, unrestricted donations mean funds can provide donors with large sums of money in the hopes of doing favors for the government as a whole, according to Ronald Mendoza, the newly appointed dean of the Ateneo School of Government in Manila.
He said that leaky security for election financing puts the economy at risk of being enslaved by the vested interests of big players.
“Only a few can donate such large amounts… so you are no longer accountable to the people who voted for you. You become more accountable to the person who actually financed you,” Mendoza said.
Mendoza said that historically, this led to monopolies and economic stagnation as reforms were blocked and competition discouraged to permit campaign benefactors to recoup their investment in the brand new leader.
Just 308 Filipinos financed the 2010 presidential election, in line with a study by the Manila-based Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), making them virtual enterprise capitalists financing high-risk startups.
