Villanueva denies not submitting campaign expense report

MANILA, Philippines - The camp of Eddie Villanueva, who ran but lost in the May 2010 presidential elections, yesterday denied reports that the evangelist and five Bangon Pilipinas Party (BPP) senatorial candidates did not submit their statement of campaign expenditures before the June 24 deadline.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) recently came out with the list of candidates who failed to submit their statement of campaign expenditures on time.

It has been reported that Villanueva, BPP’s presidential candidate, and five of the party’s senatorial bets – Zaffrullah Alonto, Kata Inocencio, Adz Nikabulin, Ramoncito Ocampo, and Alex Tinsay – were among those who did not comply with the directive.

But BPP campaign manager Lyndon Cana insisted that they filed their statement of campaign expenses, only that it was filed as a party and not as individual candidates.

“Bangon filed as a party. The understanding was that it was for all the candidates that ran under Bangon. The estimated figure (of campaign expenditures) was P90 million,” Cana said.

Cana does not see the need for their candidates to file their statements independently since the “party spent for all of them.”

BPP legal chief Ted Pascua added that it was the party “that compiled all the contributions and the spending was centralized.”

Losing candidates who did not submit their statements of campaign expenses face a fine of P1,000 to P30,000 for the first offense, and a fine of P2,000 to P60,000 plus lifetime disqualification from public office for the second offense.