GRABE SILA ANG MGA KANDIDATONG PINAKAMALAKING NAGASTO SA PAGKAMPANYA 2019 NA UMABOT SA BILLION PESO.
TO THE last, they have pledged to fight poverty and corruption, promote health and education, protect the environment, and serve the poor who make up a majority of over 60 million registered voters.
Yet while politics may divide them, money, apparent access to state funds and facilities, and donations from private pockets and public coffers that could have funded their pol ads, seem to unite those with biggest pre-campaign adspend among the senatorial candidates in the upcoming May elections.
Competing for only 12 Senate seats are 61 candidates, making for a rather crowded pool. Not surprisingly, based on data from Nielsen Media, the major candidates for senator from the administration and opposition parties and some independents appear to have already turned the May 2019 polls into a virtual marketplace for votes, starting with a circus of pre-campaign ads on air, on ground, and online.
From January 2018 to January 2019, the combined ad spending of 18 candidates on TV, radio, print, and outdoor ads have reached PhP2.4 billion, by the rate card of media agencies monitored by Nielsen Media. Yet, just a few have net worth values bigger than their respective adspend.
According to the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), Roxas who’s part of the Liberal Party is one of the biggest spenders of the senatorial elections when it comes to advertising from February 12 to April 30, 2019.
He’s the highest among the candidates who acquired advertisement, being followed by Billionaire senatorial re-electionist Cynthia Villar and PDP-Laban bet Francis Tolentino.
