By Psyche Roxas-Mendoza
Conclusion
LIGHTING her nth cigarette for the afternoon, Linda (not her real name) says that even without commercial talents tapped to endorse a candidate, it takes P500,000 to a million pesos to produce a 30-second political advertisement.
The amount corresponds to expenses for location hunting, reservation, travel, actual shooting, editing, dubbing and other related activities, like food and talent fees for director and production staff.
“Only 40 percent of the budget for producing a political ad goes to the ad agency,” Linda said. “You use up almost 60 percent for creating the ad.”
She added the budget excludes payment for celebrity endorsers, which can go as high as P8 million, “if he or she is as popular as Sarah Geronimo.”
“But that’s a separate expense to be shouldered by the client.”
Linda said her placement agency sub-contracts the production of political ads. “Matrabaho masyado, nakakapagod [It’s too tiring, work is frenetic],” adding that she prefers social-media placements.
The revenue is not so competitive in social media. “Mura lang ang ad placement [cost of ad in social media is cheap].”
“Linda said a banner political ad in Yahoo! only costs P150,000. “And [that] will already last for a month.”
A common strategy employed by political operators is the use of social media to defend a candidate or criticize his or her rival.
“Supposing our candidate gets bashed in Twitter or Facebook, our writers manufacture the retaliatory twits or statements, and our research team posts them,” Linda explained. “Iba-iba kunyari ang sumasagot; iba-ibang location, pero isang grupo lang ’yun [But it is just one group].”
She said there are devices that allow them to do that nowadays.
Community of connections
BUSY is a short word that fully describes Linda, owner of a media-placement agency. There is another pause in the interview, as Linda answers yet another call from staff, coordinating schedules for the following day.
Hers is also a world of connections, patrons and former benefactors that come with every ad placed in the trimedia.
“The media-placement community is a close community and a friendly one. People know each other. We know who won which bidding and who transferred to which [political] camp or candidate. Kaya bigayan lang [So it’s give and take].”
She said, “There is no dog-eat-dog mindset. Someone approaches you, a former client and says: ‘O si Senator __, kailangan ng TV-ad placement; sa iyo ko na ibibigay’ [Senator __ wants TV-ad placement. I’ll assign the job to you].”
Linda further explains that ad placements in the media usually go by conduits.
“For example, this public relations [PR] operator knows candidates requiring media placements. Kung ka-alyado ka niya [if you are his friend or ally], you get the contract.”
Hence, she said it matters which candidate your PR friends are aligned with.
“If their candidate does not have money, it will be lean pickings for the rest of the election season. But if your PR conduits are aligned with the incumbent, it will be a very productive election season.”
Another election reality, Linda admits, is that every election brings in new clients. There are no old clients.
“Lahat new eh. Kasi, nawawala na ’yung nanalo. Mas malaki na resources niya, lumilipat sa mas malaking outfit [All my clients are new. The old ones who won now have better resources, so they move to the big agencies],” she said. “So for every new election, a new candidate-client. We don’t have repeat clients. The only ones with a chance for repeat clients are the big agencies.”
Grooming, surveys
LIKE their counterpart candidates at the national level, local candidates also require getting introduced to voters.
But while senatorial, vice-presidential and presidential aspirants see the media as a critical channel for national projection, the candidates at the local level depend on ward leaders and ground-level political operators like Nick to carry them to victory.
A new local candidate, like one aspiring to become a councilor, is “groomed” one year before running for office. He or she is made to attend community functions and become visible to the media.
“Kumbaga, tinatambol na ’yung pangalan niya para magkaroon ng name recall [The name is made known to establish name recall.] Uma-attend na siya ng mga liga [attends sports leagues], birthday party of the barangay captain, etc. This happens one year before the campaign season,” Nick said.
And one year before the actual campaign period, a wannabe local official has to pass the surveys conducted by the incumbent to determine the most winnable among the would-be local official candidates (councilors).
The wannabe local candidate has to make it to the top half on the survey list. This is before he can apply for candidacy. Surveys are conducted by the incumbent official or political party at the local level. This is a funded activity, according to Nick. For the opposition, this is financed by the financier of the opposition ticket.
P100 million, P350 and trust
NICK said in the span of one local election-campaign season, expenses can run to P100 million to sustain the operations that penetrate every district, every barangay, every area—all the way to the sitio in every street of a city or municipality.
“In Metro Manila a district is composed of barangays. Big barangays have many areas, and every area has many streets,” Nick said. “In each of these, we identify a key person, down the line, until we reach the street level. This does not include the organized networks of the barangay captain and the kagawad—these are the people who concentrate on the sectoral formations—youth, senior citizens, disabled, LGBT, traditional organizations, etc.”
According to Nick, all of these area-based and sectoral formations should have a key person identified to oversee his or her area of responsibility.
He added that the main qualification of this key person is trust.
This line of trust begins with the local candidate, his family, trusted friends, finance people, head of operations and key operations staff—all of them must be trustworthy. Outside of this line of key trusted people, there is already the chance for turncoatism, Nick said.
“Kaya bantay-bantay lang [So you just keep your guard up]. The operations team is the candidate’s last line of defense. We are employed as community-development staff of the incumbent,” he explained. “Once the election season begins, we are transformed to an organizing team for the person running for office.”
Come election day, Nick said, they operate like a Strike Team. “We can be called for a specific task, like ‘we bulong’ [whisper]—those who convince voters at the last minute who to vote for.” Their other, more delicate task is vote-buying.
There is a science to vote-buying, according to Nick.
“You have to buy early, weeks before election. And you must befriend them, establish a closeness even before that,” Nick said. “They trust you, you trust them.”
According to Nick, the going rate at the moment for a vote is P350.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes
1 comment
the photo says it is from Baseco, Tondo??
I see posters of candidates from District 5 of Manila.