When Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama returned to work last Monday, there was a grand welcome waiting for him at City Hall as employees were reminded to bring their families as they celebrated Family Day.
The timing of the declaration couldn’t have been more opportune despite the fact that last Monday was Chinese New Year and a holiday at that, and Family Day is supposed to be held in time for City Charter Day which was several days away.
But regardless of the reason, Rama’s return occasioned the usual selfie which the mayor posted on his social media account and which drew the usual round of congratulations and denunciations.
His rival, former mayor Tomas Osmeña, has also been actively raising his social media profile of late even as the campaign period for local candidates is yet to start next month.
The voting public can simply dismiss the social media war between these two gentlemen as part and parcel of the campaign period, which has largely been bent or violated, whichever is applicable, by national candidates owing to the vague legal definition of what constitutes premature campaigning.
While the Comelec and legal minds try to craft some legislation that would impose more definite parameters on premature campaigning, the poll agency said recently that it is monitoring the campaign expenses incurred by a candidate in online campaigning.
Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said while they are not regulating the use of social media like Facebook and Twitter, they are monitoring candidates who use the medium for their campaigns, and this would likely involve posting videos on their accounts which may or may not be separate from the ones they air on TV and radio.
Which explains why the Comelec signed an agreement with Facebook in relation to the election season. Facebook officials in the Philippines said they have an audience of 47 million Filipinos, which means they pretty much have the attention of the 54 million-plus registered voters in the country.
Candidates like Rama and Osmeña have Facebook pages which are maintained daily by them or their subalterns. While they may not post videos that cost millions of pesos, that won’t stop them from paying other people from posting professionally done videos, though they would balk and even resent the idea that they would resort to such moves.
That said, though we wonder how they can monitor online campaign expenses, we have witnessed how Comelec managed to unseat former Laguna governor George Ejercito after he was found out to have exceeded the ceiling for campaign expenses.
Ejercito’s fate should serve to remind local and national candidates not to exceed the parameters set by law on campaign expenses as well as the voting public, who should be vigilant enough to know if their chosen candidates are spending too much to get reelected, whether out of their own pocket, their sponsors, or worse, public money.
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