EDITORIAL - Regulating campaign finance

In next year’s midterm elections, winners will no longer be allowed to take their oath and assume their posts unless they have filed their statement of election contributions and expenditures or SECE. The requirement is embodied in a memorandum of agreement signed yesterday by the heads of the Commission on Elections and the Department of the Interior and Local Government.

The filing requirement in fact has been in place for a long time, but it has served as little more than a token gesture toward campaign finance regulation. Before the signing of the agreement yesterday, winning candidates could assume their posts even before filing their SECE. Compliance with the filing requirement could wait until nearly the end of the winner’s term of office.

Now that filing the SECE is a requirement for swearing into office, the next step for authorities is to see to it that the statements can be verified for accuracy. Public officials are required to file statements of assets, liabilities and net worth or SALN, but verification is almost non-existent, except when an official faces an investigation for graft, tax evasion or, in the case of Chief Justice Renato Corona, is undergoing an impeachment trial.

Corona’s case has highlighted the weaknesses in the rules for filing SALNs. The requirement for filing an SECE suffers similar infirmities. Corruption in this country often starts during election campaigns, when donors invest in candidates the way they bet on racehorses. Investing in a winner can pay off handsomely. Fat contracts awarded without bidding, positions in government even for the undeserving, sinecures in government corporations, or a voice in policy making are just some of the ways by which financial support in a campaign is rewarded. Lawmakers have long resisted proposals for campaign finance reforms, and even presidents have taken the SECE requirement lightly. With the agreement signed yesterday, perhaps the nation will start seeing reforms.