If in the absence of a law penalizing “premature campaigning” the Commission on Elections cannot sanction incumbent government officials who appear to be campaigning early for the 2016 polls in the guise of advertising or promoting their respective offices through print, radio and/or television commercials, the Commission on Audit and the Ombudsman can pursue criminal actions against them under Section 3(g) of Republic Act No. 3019[1] for “entering into contracts or transactions that are manifestly and grossly disadvantageous to the government.”
Only recently, Comelec Chair Andres Bautista called on the “civil society groups and poll watchdogs to help sway the voting public against ‘epal’ candidates.” These groups can start by filing in the COA and the Ombudsman cases against the epal. For bad faith is evident in the use of public funds for such advertisements which are clearly intended to promote only the images of the epal for election purposes and there is no benefit that could be derived by the people from the millions of pesos spent for such transactions. Section 3(c) of RA 3019 also prohibits public officers from performing official duties in “evident bad faith” which cause “undue injury to the government.”
Likewise, Presidential Decree No. 1445 or the State Audit Code of the Philippines declares that “all resources of the government shall be safeguarded against loss or waste through illegal or improper disposition” and that the COA is mandated to prevent and disallow the “irregular, unnecessary, excessive or extravagant or unconscionable expenditure” of public funds as provided under COA Circular No. 85-55-A dated Sept. 8, 1985.
In a case, the Supreme Court ruled that “unnecessary” expenditures are those which are “not dictated by the demands of good government” or such expenses that “could be dispensed with without loss or damage to property.” The Court also ruled that “extravagant” expenditures are those “incurred without restraint, judiciousness and economy and exceed the bounds of propriety.” Surely, epal ads are unconscionable expenses that exceed the bounds of propriety as they are unnecessary and could be dispensed with because, even without them, the operation of their respective offices will not be paralyzed.
Thus, it would not be difficult to pursue such cases against the epal officials since the facts cannot be disputed in that the advertisements their offices paid for were grossly and manifestly disadvantageous to the government because the funds were irregularly, unnecessarily and unconscionably used to the advantage of these government officials
who are eyeing elective posts in the 2016 elections.
—ROMULO B. MACALINTAL,
election lawyer, Las Piñas City