The survey frontrunner, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, has claimed to not have enough financial backing to get him through a costly campaign, unlike his opponents. But with the recent report obtained by The Standard from the Nielsen Media Survey, Duterte is shown to have consumed the most ads airtime among the presidential bets. He already spent P408.67 million on 517.2 minutes of airtime.
According to The Standard, Duterte has placed ads in nine TV stations, making him the presidential candidate with the widest reach. The others only distributed their ads among GMA, ABS-CBN, TV5, ANC. But for Duterte, he also placed ads on ETC (SBN), RJTV, Solar Sports, Basketball TV, Jack TV, and ABS-CBN Sports + Action.
Duterte’s TV ads were only shown in February on three stations, although his March spending increased threefold in April as six more stations were added. In April alone, Duterte has the biggest ads spending.
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As where airtime is concerned, Duterte was followed by Vice President Jejomar Binay, Senator Grace Poe, former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, and Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago.
But in terms of spending, Poe certainly was up on top with her P429.74 million of expenses, followed closely by Duterte’s spending of P408.67 million. Binay ranked third in spending P375.61 million, while Roxas spent P358.39. Defensor, once more, was ranked last with only an ad spending of P40 million.
Earlier in March, Duterte admitted to having an anonymous Chinese donor who funded his pre-campaign ads. Duterte also said that he will say no to donations from people “doing business with the government” to avoid giving favors if he wins as the next president. But during the third presidential debate, he was asked who his sponsor was and he just blurted out the name Emilio Aguinaldo.
We will hopefully know the truth behind the sponsors and donors to the candidates’ election campaign after May 9 when they submit their Statement of Contributions and Expenditures (SOCE) as required by the Comelec.
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