The Commission on Elections on Monday said it would stick to its requirement for candidates to have their social media accounts verified despite criticisms that it might be disadvantageous to some aspirants.
Having a verified account helps make a candidate accountable in the political ads that they post on social media, Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said.
"We want to make sure that there's accountability for the information that's being pushed out. We want to make sure that people have a credible source that they can trust," he told reporters in an interview.
"When you have a verified account, that is a trusted source. If that trusted source still comes out with fake news, at the very least it is accountable," he added.
The poll body earlier issued the guidelines for campaigning in the 2022 elections which include a provision requiring candidates and political parties to have a platform-verified social media accounts where they could run election-related advertisements.
"Only verified accounts, websites, blogs, and/or social media pages may run electoral ads, and boost or promote electoral posts," the guidelines read.
Election lawyer Emil Marañon criticized the move, pointing out the minimum requirement of having 100,000 subscribers in order to get verified.
The new policy also prompted some aspirants for electoral posts to ask their followers to subscribe to them on YouTube and other social media platforms to meet the subscriber requirement.
"YouTube is an important platform for many campaigns because running ads and videos there are free, unlike on TV which cost millions. They are not also covered by airtime limits," Marañon said.
"I just hope Comelec wakes up from this madness and reconsider this very arbitrary policy," he added.
Jimenez said just because the policy was misunderstood doesn't mean that the Comelec will change it right away.
"We never said that you're supposed to have 100,000 followers. We just said you need to get verified. Did anyone try to get verified? Because those who did got verified. Ganun lang naman kasimple yun," he said.
Jimenez earlier said the Comelec would work with YouTube to secure verified badges for official candidates.
The Comelec also allowed national candidates to use the poll body's own social media channels to livestream their virtual meetings for free.
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