WATCH OUT: LEGARDA CAMPAIGN SPENDING HIGHEST AMONG VP BETS

Nacionalista Party standard bearers Senators Manuel Villar and Loren Legarda remain the tandem to beat in terms of campaign advertisement spending for the May 10 national elections.

Liberal Party Director General Chito Gascon said Legarda has been lying and engaging in misinformation in claming that her main opponent LP vice-presidential candidate and survey frontrunner Senator Mar Roxas had spent more than P1 billion for the May 10 elections.

Gascon said Legarda has a record of attributing to her opponents what she does in sly, as seen in her expenditures in TV advertisements from September last year up to now.

He said the truth is that since the start of the campaign period last February 9 until February 28, Legarda has already spent P31 million for 162 television and radio spots, compared to Roxas' P23 million for 90 TV and radio spots.

Gascon also accused Legarda of feeding the public with "manufactured" data when she claimed that Roxas had already spent a fortune on campaign advertisements even before the official start of the campaign period.

He said it was actually Legarda who spent P140.6 million in television and radio 'infomercials' from September 1, 2009 to December 15, 2009. During the said period, there were no 'infomercial' placements for Roxas.

"Huling-huli na naman nating nag-iimbento ng katotohanan itong si Senador Legarda. Nasa record naman ng mga media outfits kung magkano na ba talaga ang binabayad sa kanila ng mga kandidato. Hindi ito mado-doktor ng kahit na sinuman (We have again caught Legarda lying. It is in the financial records of media outfits how much each candidate pay for their ads. These cannot be doctored by anyone)," he said.

Meanwhile, Gascon said Villar has spent P195.1 million in print, radio and TV ads from February 9 to March 15. His one-month campaign expenditure raised his total political advertisements expenses from November 1, 2009 to March 2, 2010 to over P1.3 billion, an amount almost equivalent to the TV ad expenditures of four of his rivals.

Republic Act No. 7166 or the Synchronized Elections Law limits the campaign expenditures of candidates running for president and vice-president to only P10 for every registered voter within the official campaign period. With a projected total of 50 million voters in the upcoming polls, candidates are only authorized to spend around P500 million each for their respective campaigns.

LP standard-bearer Senator Noynoy Aquino spent P154.6 million during the same period, while former president Joseph Estrada spent P103.2 million, followed by administration bet, former Defense Chief Gilbert Teodoro with P330. 680 and evangelist Bro. Eddie Villanueva, P149.252.

Gascon assured the public that political advertisement expenditures of the Aquino-Roxas tandem are still very much within the law-imposed limit on campaign spending.