MANILA – The House of Representatives passed a bill that seeks to increase the authorized campaign expenditures of candidates and political parties during national and local elections.
Voting 188-6, representatives approved on third and final reading House Bill 7295, which amends Section 13 of Republic Act 7166, or the Act Providing for Synchronized National and Local Elections and for Electoral Reforms.
The bill seeks to have “a more realistic level of expenditure” in the elections and encourages candidates to declare their true and actual campaign expenses as required by law.
Under the bill, election candidates’ authorized expenses per voter are as follows:
* P50 for president
* P40 for vice president
* P30 for senator, district representative, governor, vice governor, board members, mayor, vice mayor, and councilors
* P10 for party-lists
* P40 for independent candidates or those without any political party or support from any political party
In the existing law, presidential candidates are allowed only P10 per voter while P3 per voter is allowed for all the other positions.
A candidate without any political party and support from any political party is allowed to spend only P5 for every voter while those with political parties, P5.
Those who authored the House bill were Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms chairman Sherwin Tugna (CIBAC party-list), Feliciano Belmonte Jr. (Quezon City) and Xavier Jesus Romualdo (Camiguin)./PN
