Return on investment

Poor Vetallano Acosta. The standard-bearer of a faction of what was once the mightiest political party in the country, the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan, was stranded in Manila and failed to kick off his campaign last Tuesday for lack of funds.

Unlike Sen. Jamby Madrigal, whose family owns the most expensive commercial area in Alabang, Acosta probably knows the price of galunggong, and that “GG” has become too expensive to be considered the poor man’s fish.

Today the poor man’s fare is a pack of instant noodles, occasionally fortified with egg, eaten with NFA rice. The fish is canned: San Marino corned tuna. This product flies off supermarket shelves.

The sorry plight of Acosta, who lost his running mate Jay Sonza on the first day of the official campaign period, is but an extreme illustration of the necessity of sufficient logistics in a presidential campaign.

Funding is also the problem of survey tail-enders Nicanor Perlas and Olongapo Councilor J.C. de los Reyes.

A presidential candidate needs funding not just for advertisements and all the campaign materials that are allowed by law, such as streamers and leaflets, but also for the transportation, food and accommodations of an entire campaign team while barnstorming the country. Frontrunners enjoy the support of financiers with the deepest pockets, and can afford to tool across 7,100 islands in private planes.

As Election Day approaches, a party’s political leaders expect money — and no plastic or checks, please, only cash will do — to improve voters’ name recall of the party’s candidates.

Many campaigns even for local positions have faltered in those final days, when the frontrunners cement their leads and financial backers switch their investments to the one who best smells like a winner.

In the general elections in 2004, a candidate reportedly lost P30 million along with his political innocence when even his trusted friends pocketed his money instead of distributing the cash to political leaders.

According to conservative estimates back in 2004, a candidate needed about P2 billion to finance a respectable campaign for the presidency.

How that money is raised, and how the money is spent, are among the roots of corruption and bad governance in this country.

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It doesn’t have to be this way. Bills have been filed in Congress, proposing various reforms in campaign financing that would promote transparency in donations and spending as well as ease the burden of funding for individual candidates.

But in congress after congress, the bills have been stuck in the legislative mill, with lawmakers pretending that the proposal is a boil that would go away.

Fortunes have been built and political dynasties sustained through the opaque system of campaign finance. Most of those dynasties have family members ensconced in the House of Representatives. How can legislators be instrumental in killing their own family business?

Some candidates have tried to be more transparent. The camp of Sen. Richard Gordon organized a P10,000-a-plate dinner to raise funds for his campaign, where the donors could be easily identified. I’m not sure how much was raised.

With his American heritage, Gordon is borrowing a page from political fund-raising in the United States, where laws on transparency and setting limits on campaign donations and expenditures are better enforced. Compliance is not 100 percent, but violators can get caught and punished.

It didn’t help that among the most vocal proponents of campaign finance reforms, in congress after congress, was Pangasinan Rep. Jose de Venecia Jr.

Being an active member of the international organization of Christian Democrats, De Venecia has gone as far as proposing that Filipinos follow the example of certain European countries, where the state subsidizes the campaign expenditures of political parties. The subsidies are subjected to accounting rules governing public funds.

The reaction to this proposal, not surprisingly, has been, “Ano ka, sineswerte?” (Rough translation: You wish you were so lucky!) The immediate concern is that any state subsidy will simply end up in the pockets of venal politicians, with accurate accounting a joke.

It has also been pointed out that the subsidies will work only if the country has a strong party system. As Vetallano Acosta can probably attest, parties can have a short shelf life in this land of political butterflies.

But there are glimmers of hope that the party system might be strengthened. In this year’s general elections, we have seen the revitalization of the two oldest parties in the country: the Liberal Party, whose standard-bearer is Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, and the Nacionalista Party led by Sen. Manny Villar.

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The two candidates, who are in a dead heat according to the latest surveys, have raised valid issues regarding each other’s campaign financing.

Billionaire Villar, the richest presidential candidate, has been criticized by his rivals for being the biggest spender on campaign advertisements.

Villar has responded that he is spending his own money and therefore will not owe debts of gratitude that he will have to repay if he wins. The ads, he says, are the best way for him to level the playing field against rivals with famous parents – an obvious allusion to Ninoy and Cory Aquino – or who are popular entertainers, in reference to movie star Joseph Estrada.

The response of the LP: Noynoy Aquino will not accept campaign donations if there are conditions attached.

The LP also wants to know how Villar intends to recover his huge personal investment in his campaign for a position with a basic pay of about P50,000 a month.

A similar question should be asked of all the candidates: How do you recover within six years P2 billion in personal investments, or repay (with interest) those who invested in you? There is no such thing as a free lunch, especially in Philippine politics. What’s the return on investment?

It would be easier to answer that question honestly and accurately if there is transparency and accountability in campaign finance.