The beneficiaries

By DR. RAMON RICARDO A. ROQUE

THE Philippine Senate ap­proved last week on third and final reading a proposed measure on the grant of higher discount rates for political advertisements on radio and television during the election period.

Who will benefit from this measure once the same is passed into law?

In approving the proposal, the Senators hope to have more in­formed voters.

By increasing the rates of politi­cal advertisements from 30% to 40% for television and from 20% to 30% for radio, the candidates will certainly benefit. They will end up incurring lesser campaign expenses for the same number of political advertisements or have more media exposure with the same budget for radio and televi­sion advertisements.

The objective of raising more informed voters, presumably from more political advertisements of candidates, can only be realized if there is a direct correlation between the number of advertise­ments and the voters’ absorption of the message from the same.

Is there really such a correla­tion? Just asking.

The more substantial question is on the content of the political advertisements and the relation of the same in developing and ac­tualizing “more or better informed voters.”

What makes a voter an in­formed voter?

What should political adver­tisement contain for them to be effective means of developing informed voters?

We hope that experts in this field will study the contents of political advertisements used in the recent past and determine whether they are at least enough to develop more informed Filipino voters.

If there are concerns on the contents of political advertisements relative to the development of more informed voters, the increase in the number of advertisement placements in radio and televi­sion due to higher discount rates granted by law will not result in the achievement of the law’s intent.

Without addressing the aspect of political advertisement contents, increasing the number of advertise­ment placements will only reinforce the “name recall” culture of elec­tions in our country – candidates are elected because voters can recall their names during election day and not because of their quali­fications and governance agenda.

Any initiative to improve the quality of elections in our country should be supported because it will improve the quality of Philippine democracy and thus serve better the interests of the current and future generation of Filipinos.

However, initiatives that will re­sult in the promotion and strength­ening of “shallow politics” in our country will benefit only the politi­cians and not the people.