Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — Candidates in the upcoming polls will get more air time for their television and radio advertisements.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) set the airtime in the new implementing rules and regulations of the Fair Elections Act.
Instead of a total 120 minutes of television ads across all stations — each national candidate or political party is now allowed 120 minutes of airtime in each television station.
Likewise on radio, they may now air 180 minutes of campaign ads per station, instead of the aggregated 180 minutes across all radio stations.
Local candidates are allowed half of those hours — 60 minutes for television and 90 minutes for radio ads.
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The Comelec imposed the aggregated limits in the run-up to the 2013 national elections, but a TV network contested it before the Supreme Court and won in 2014.
“The Supreme Court said that hindi tama yung aggregate time limit,” said Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez. “And this argument was raised before the court as well and I guess the court decided that it was better to rule in favor of freedom of expression and the right of the public to be informed.”
The Comelec also requires the ads to indicate who paid for them and which candidate they are being paid for.
That’s to allow the poll body to keep track of how much each candidate or political party spends on their campaign.
