CEBU, Philippines - As of 5 pm yesterday, only 12 candidates who ran in the last elections have been able to submit their statements of contributions and expenditures to the Commission on Elections.
The rest of the candidates —winners, defeated or disqualified— have until today to comply with the requirement.
These 104 candidates who ran in Cebu City must submit their report today to avoid having to pay the administrative fine ranging from P1,000 to P30,000 for the first offense and up to P60,000 for the second offense.
Winning candidates who failed to submit their expense report shall also be penalized with administrative fines plus they will not be allowed to assume office.
“Failure to submit shall bar the winning candidate to enter the function of his office,” said lawyer Edwin Cadungog, election officer for the south district.
“If the winning candidates submit their report after the deadline, I don’t know kung unsay decision sa Manila but in my opinion lang, definitely naa g’yud na’y administrative fine. Makalingkod gihapon para nako, kay ngano, failure to submit ra man ang gisulti sa balaod. Wala man ingun nga hangtod sa deadline. Pag-fail ra, wala magsulti og period,” Cadungog added.
The first candidate to submit report on his expenses was Victoriano Go who declared P65,000 expenditure where P50,000 of which was donated and P15,000 came from his pocket.
Juan Arenasa spent P600, Danilo Fernan spent P67,800 while Rodolfo Cabrera, a candidate for vice-mayor of the opposition declared that he spent a total of P434,000 where P400,000 came from donated and the rest his personal expenses.
Crescente Busalla, independent candidate for vice-mayor spent only P15,000 for his campaign.
Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan’s winning candidate for councilors Rodrigo Abellanosa, Roberto Cabarrubias and Noel Wenceslao spent P525,438, P546,782 and P51,000 respectively.
Abellanosa’s expenses all came from his personal funds. Cabarrubias only spent P50,000 from his pocket while the rest were donated. In the case of Wenceslao, he only received P20,000 donation and the rest are from his personal funds.
Danilo Lim declared P66,000 expenses, Anne Marie Palomo and Eugenio Gabuya both spent P65,000 each while Raul del Rosario spent P62,000.
Each candidate was only allowed to spend P3 per voter. So far, no candidate has exceeded the maximum P1.55 million expenses for 518,091 registered voters here. — THE FREEMAN