Robredo says her Facebook ads were mostly paid for by volunteers

Vice President Leni Robredo on Thursday said most of her political advertisements on Facebook were paid for by volunteers, after a Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) report named her as top ad spender among candidates in the 2022 elections.

In an interview on ANC, Robredo, who is running as president, said she is not aware of any advertisement paid for by her camp for her official campaign.

“Ang alam ko talaga karamihan talaga dito mga volunteer groups [what I know is that most of these were from volunteer groups],” she said.

According to the PCIJ report, Robredo spent P14.1 million on Facebook from August 4, 2020 to December 31, 2021 based on the review of the social media platform’s Ad Library.

PCIJ said this amount represented only 12% of Robredo’s total ad spending in traditional media from January to September 2021, which amounts to P120 million based on published rate cards.

“I understand why our volunteers feel the need to do that because it’s been clear over the past five years, and going into the campaign, na grabe talaga yung social media machinery ng kalaban [of the rival is intense],”

Robredo did not mention any names but said her rival might not spend on ads but have many spendings that are “not over the table, not aboveboard.”

“Alam natin na marami silang ginagawa na gumagastos sila, pero hindi ito pareho ng Facebook ads na you can actually compute and quantify,” she added.

(We know they do a lot of spending, but it’s not the same as Facebook ads that one can actually compute and quantify.)

She stressed that many of her volunteers have the perception that they have to help with her presidential campaign by initiating fundraising activities.

However, Robredo said that her camp has been talking to the volunteer groups and informing them that they could no longer spend so much on her ads by the official start of the campaign period as those will already be counted as hers.

Based on the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) calendar of activities for Eleksyon 2022, the campaign period for candidates of president, vice president, senator, and party-lists will start on February 8.

“Wala kaming central repository ng lahat ng pondo na nanggagaling sa lahat-lahat ng mga fundraising efforts, but alam ko na our official campaign team is looking for ways on how we can have a mechanism na masundan ito,” Robredo said.

(We don’t have a central repository of all the funds that come from all the fundraising efforts, but I know that our official campaign team is looking for ways on how we can have a sort of mechanism to track them.)

'Fake news'

Meanwhile, Robredo admitted that her camp’s initial approach of not minding “fake news” peddlers who spread wrong information against her was not effective.

“Mali ako eh [I was wrong]. I did not even attempt to correct many of the fake news being said about me kasi [because] lies repeated again and again become the truth,” she said, noting that the accusations thrown at her was “so frustrating.”

Robredo earlier called out those who claimed that the Bayanihan E-Konsulta, a telemedicine platform by her office, is being used to ask the precinct number of those who avail of the services amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

She said that these services are not being used for election purposes, noting that it is "unforgivable" that such information is being circulated amid the sharp increase in COVID-19 cases.

As a solution to this problem, Robredo said that they have already reported the fake news purveyors to the concerned agencies and coordinated with several social media platforms to ask them of their plans to combat disinformation online.

Robredo then admitted that it was not easy to penetrate social media as it works on algorithms and might therefore be saturated by disinformation.

“So, what we’re doing now is really encourage all our volunteers to go out and not just depend on social media but to actually reach out in their own circles and help us spread the truth,” she added. —KBK, GMA News