RUNNING a nationwide political campaign for the top elective post doesn’t require too much with an embedded network of volunteers in place, says Benito Ranque amid doubts on the statement of contributions and expenditures (SOCE) submitted by incoming President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President-elect Sara Duterte to the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
In his capacity as lead convenor of the Marcos-Sara Duterte Alliance (MASADA), one of the biggest parallel organization which helped the BBM-Sara tandem secure votes in the provinces, Ranque said that not one person in his group received allowance from day one that they started rolling from one province to another.
Ranque admits, the road to victory wasn’t a walk in the park even as he claimed that MASADA, organized in 2020 and referred to as Mayor Sara Duterte Alliance then, was primarily formed to convince then Davao City Mayor to seriously consider running for President.
“But when Mayor Sara decided to run for Vice President, I was told to follow her lead – which I did,” said Ranque, even as he dispelled the estimates peddled by political analysts who hinted “billions of pesos for the BBM-Sara tandem to launch an effective nationwide campaign.”
“It was the clarion call for volunteerism that gained track and resulted in less spending as compared to previous presidential derbies where candidates for the Palace post would spend at least one billion pesos with no guarantee of winning. Just an effective campaign.”
Checking at the political structure of the BBM-Sara campaign groups, MASADA did the hopping from one place to another mobilizing ground-based volunteer groups embarking on traditional and social media campaigns. Before the election, MASADA also established a network of supporters with a tall order – to secure the Marcos-Duterte votes in a bid to thwart “another Smartmatic glitch.”
Documents submitted by the incoming President’s lawyer Drixel Dabatos to the poll body showed Marcos spent a little over P623 million (largely bankrolled by his political party) while Duterte’s campaign cost was pegged at 216 million.
Based on his SOCE, Marcos relied on cash contributions (P371.7 million) and in-kind contributions (P251.4 million). His political vehicle – the Partido Federal ng Pilipinas claimed to have spent P272 million, mostly for television advertisements and campaign rallies. The Omnibus Election Code strictly mandates the submission of SOCE before a winning candidate gets the green light to assume post.
