By IPS Correspondents
MANILA, May 12 2007 (IPS)

“I miss those days when candidates would go from town to town, knocking on doors and shaking hands with the people,” rues 65-year-old Honorato Guevara, a retired businessman who hails from Camarines Sur in central Philippines.

“Then, I’d know when a politician is sincere by the way he smiles and shakes hands and answers questions directly about issues,” he said in the vernacular. “Now, they’re all on television looking like movie stars.”

Guevara does find the candidates’ TV advertisements “quite entertaining”. But how much of a deciding factor these materials – the deluge that voters have seen, heard and learned from print and broadcast media – will be in the May 14 national polls is another matter.

On Monday, Guevara and more than 40 million other Filipinos will troop to the poll booths to cast their votes for their local representatives, provincial officials and senators.

This “use by the candidates of the immense power of media in carrying their messages directly to the electorate” is a major factor to watch, according to Centre for Policy Research and Strategic Studies chief Winston Marbella.

TV, which has 90 percent penetration in households in this South-east Asian country of 87 million people, has become the battleground for political discussions and debates in the three-month campaign period leading to the Monday vote.

She cites reports that in at least one province, political advertisements during the campaign season – mainly by gubernatorial candidates – accounted for 80 percent of TV stations’ revenues.

Clearly, access to media and advertisements goes to candidates and parties with more money – something that critics say undercuts intelligent public debates and creates an unequal election battleground.

On an average, 30-second primetime TV advertisements cost about 160,000 pesos (3,390 US dollars), and 60,000 pesos (1,271 dollars) for non-primetime per airing. Fifteen-second ads are all non-primetime and cost about 70,000 pesos (1,483 dollars). For print, a one-fourth page, full-colour advertisement can cost up to 69,000 pesos (1,462 dollars).

Already, news reports say that two senatorial candidates have gone over the cap of 135 million pesos (2.8 million dollars) for print and broadcast media advertisements set by the Commission on Elections.

Mong Palatino, head of the Kabataan (Youth) Party List whose blog www.mongpalatino.motime.com is enjoying brisk hits, said: “Wealthy candidates are taking advantage of the corporate-dominated media in order to win the elections. Big business interests are packaged as public service. Mainstream media will favour the candidates who can afford the expensive rates charged by media owners.”

“Recent elections have become money-centred, which usually revolves around paid TV ads because candidates would like to achieve wider reach in less time as possible. Gone are the days when candidates go on different sorties to meet people personally,” said Marlinda Angbetic Tan, lifestyle editor of ‘The Freeman’, a leading daily in central Cebu province. “They thought they might as well pay for a TV and radio ad.” Palatino said that some candidates focused their campaigns in the capital, Metro Manila, due to easier access to mainstream TV stations easily. “Political rallies are held in time for primetime news programmes so they can be covered by live TV,” he said.

For politicians opposed to the government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and who call themselves the ‘genuine opposition ticket’, the media hold the key to reaching millions of voters.

“The media are the preferred source of information among voters, especially television which has overtaken radio in recent years,” opposition campaign manager Renato Constantino Jr. told IPS.

“We have to resort to whatever’s available to us and we’ve been forced to be creative,” he said, adding that their campaign has been hampered not just by high costs of media campaigning but also by legal action filed by the government against the media.

Despite this, a recent survey by the Social Weather Station’s polling group expects a 6-4-2 win in favour of the opposition, followed by the administration ticket called ‘Team Unity’ and independent candidates.

While TV advertisements are perfectly legal, some quarters believe that these divert the attention of voters from the real issues.

For Palatino, “most of them are shallow ads made to impress and deceive people”.

Lazaro believes that the media – including the so-called new media such as the Internet and SMS – are here to stay.

“This is good because it democratises things a bit. In the past, the sole dominant space was print media. Now, other platforms are opening up, especially for the youth. It also gives candidates opportunities to reach out to more people,” explained Lazaro. “The bad side of this is the use of media is skewed in favour of those who have the money.”

Said Palatino: “A candidate has to spend 57 million pesos (1.2 million dollars) if he or she uses the allowed 120 minutes of TV air time for political ads. A candidate can also negotiate with media companies to grant radio or TV interviews to gain more media exposure. Only the wealthy candidates can benefit from this situation.” Next to TV, radio is the most popular source of information as it is accessible in far-flung areas. Newspapers have not really benefited from the revenues generated by political ads, Chua said, although they remain the main source of news for the broadcast media.

Lazaro says the Internet has been the “great equaliser” because it is practically a free medium, but Internet penetration is low at 9 to 10 percent).

Despite this, many candidates have their own websites apart from their party’s official sites or other websites put up by their supporters.

In the end, though, Lazaro said, what happens on election day is what counts. Given the history of Philippine elections and the role of fraud, she said, “manipulation at the canvassing will still call the shots at the end of the day”. Still, some say that voters have become more discerning in their choices, so that a candidate’s wealth will not necessarily translate into votes.

“It’s a combination of media exposure and track record, or awareness perhaps. All of these things come into play,” said Lazaro.

“There is an observation that voters are more mature today. Celebrity actors running for the Senate are faring poorly in surveys, unlike in 2004 when actors roundly won in the polls,” said Palatino.

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