The Pera at Pulitika (PAP) 2010 Consortium presented to the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) En Banc two new publications on campaign spending during the May 2010 elections.

The first book entitled, The Campaign Finance Reader: Money Politics and the May 2010 Elections is a collection of reports filed by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism and Consortium on Electoral Reforms before, during and right after the 2010 polls. The second book,  News for Sale: Cash Overload, Media Overdrive, is a companion reader that features viewpoints on the corruption and unethical practices of the media during elections.

The PAP 2010 Consortium is composed of 4 member organizations: Association of Schools of Public Administration in the Philippines (ASPAP), the Consortium on Electoral Reforms (CER), the Lawyers’ League for Liberty (LIBERTAS) and the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ).

In 2007, a group of five organizations formed PAP in response to the excessive candidate spending in the Philippines, which undermined the country’s campaign finance laws and made the candidates’ playing field uneven. With IFES’ assistance, PAP began to assess and monitor campaign spending, particularly during electoral periods, and raise public awareness about the issues surrounding political finance in the Philippines.

As a result of this 3-year effort, in the most recent 2010 May general elections, PAP’s findings on the presidential candidates’ use of airtime prompted the Philippine Commission on Elections to conduct their own investigations and corroborate the findings by the PAP group. This helped increase collaboration between civil society and the COMELEC, and created public awareness of the need to encourage the enforcement of campaign finance laws in the Philippines.

More details about the launch event can be found at this link: http://www.pcij.org/blog/