Noynoy: Comelec may have erred in computing my airtime

Senator Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III said the Commission on Elections (Comelec) may have erred in its monitoring of his advertising broadcast time on ABS-CBN as he maintained that his camp keeps track of his airtime. Aquino made the statement Friday night after the Comelec said he had already used up 291.5 minutes of broadcast time on ABS-CBN from February 9 to March 12. The law limits candidates’ advertising time on each television channel to only 120 minutes for the entire election campaign period. "Mali yata ang kanilang monitoring. Meron kaming tinalaga na professional group to precisely backtrack, to check on the minutes (There seems to be an error in their monitoring. We have deployed a professional group that will precisely backtrack, to check on the minutes)," he told reporters in Manila. While Aquino maintained that his staff has computed his airtime, he did not specify how many minutes he had used up. Resolution 8758, which provides implementing rules for the Fair Election Practices Act, restricts national candidates and parties to only 120 minutes of broadcast advertising on each local and cable television channel and 180 minutes on each radio station for the whole campaign period. Local candidates, on the other hand, will only be allowed 60 minutes of advertisements on television and 90 minutes on radio. The campaign period for national candidates began on February 9 and for local candidates, on March 26. Both campaign periods will end on May 8. Aside from Aquino, the Nacionalista Party also exceeded the airtime limit on ABS-CBN by incurring a total of 256.5 minutes of ads, the Comelec said. Violation of Resolution 8758 constitutes an election offense, which is punishable by disqualification, disenfranchisement and one to six years imprisonment. In the case of a political party found violating the rules, it may be fined not lower than P10,000 after criminal action is instituted against its officials found guilty.—JV, GMANews.TV