The Liberal Party and defeated presidential candidate Manuel Roxas II have asked the Commission on Elections for a 14-day extension of the deadline for the submission of their Statement of Contributions and Expenditures. The original deadline was June 8.
According to Roxas, he was not able to submit on time because of the “voluminous number of receipts that have to be scanned and attached to the document.”
His lawyer, Romulo Macalintal, tried to play down the administration bet’s lapse. “There’s no problem. It was just a late filing. There was no violation of the law. He will still file and the worst-case scenario is to pay a fine.”
Earlier, the Comelec spokesman had said that under the law, winning candidates cannot assume office—in this case on June 30—if their parties fail to file the statement. Such is the case that the proclaimed vice president, the Liberal Party’s Leonor Robredo, now says she is confident her party can comply with the filing requirement—there is still plenty of time. After all, she herself had been able to beat the original deadline. She revealed she had spent P418 million, all of which came from contributions. Robredo was the biggest spender among all vice presidential candidates.
But even the fact that Robredo’s biggest supporter was a presidential sister who gave her P31 million is eclipsed by the questions arising from why exactly Roxas and the party itself have not been able to complete the paperwork when they had known beforehand when the deadline was.
It may be administrative negligence, or, some quarters cannot help thinking, something more sinister like taking contributions from the Philippine government itself through public funds and not knowing how to launder it. It is no secret that the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program provided legitimate cover for LP bets to endear themselves to dole recipients across the country. We would agree there would have to be voluminous receipts to support these activities.
Whatever the reason, it is glaring that Roxas and the Liberal Party would just go and inform the Comelec that they would not be able to file the SOCEs on time—when they were due. That they did not even wait for the Comelec’s reply. It was a unilateral declaration that they felt entitled to leniency from a supposedly independent constitutional commission.
All the other parties and all the other candidates must have voluminous records as well, but they managed to file. Is the same too much to expect from the people who claim to have a monopoly on righteousness?