The camp of defeated presidential candidate Manuel A. Roxas II has asked for a 14-day extension of the deadline for the filing of the Statement of Contributions and Expenditures after he failed to beat the deadline Wednesday.
Rep. Barry Gutierrez, Liberal Party spokesman for campaign, said they filed the request before the Commission on Elections yesterday.
“The primary reason is the voluminous number of receipts that have to be scanned and attached to the document in compliance with the rules and in the interest of complete transparency,” said Gutierrez.
Only Roxas failed to submit his SoCE, which is a mandatory rule set by the Comelec as part of the effort to make election expenditures transparent.
Non-filing may result to some sanctions that maybe imposed by the poll body, including disqualification if a candidate runs again for public office in the future.
Roxas is said to be one of the top spenders in the 2016 elections and based on the filed SoCE, his running mate, Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo, who won the race by a very slim margin, is the top spender among the vice presidential candidates.
Sen. Grace Poe was the biggest election spender with P510.8 million. She received P511.9 million in contributions.
Vice President Jejomar C. Binay came in second with P463.3 million spent out of the P463.4 million he received as contributions.
President-elect Rodrigo Duterte received P375 million in contributions but spent P371.4 million. Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago spent all the contributions she had received at P74.6 million. (Aaron B. Recuenco)