Sidebar | Candidates for Senate and Party-list: Hardly Noticed

AMONG THE newspapers CMFR reviewed from Feb. 9 to 20, The Standard was found to feature Romualdez quite frequently.

Romualdez, Leyte’s 1^st District representative, is on his third term. He is one of the 50 candidates vying for a senate seat in the upcoming elections, running under Lakas-Christian-Muslim-Democratic Party (LAKAS-CMD). Apart from authoring 46 house measures and co-authoring 57, he logged a total attendance record of 160 days out of 168 session days in the 15^th Congress. On the 16^th Congress attendance record (Jan. 20, 2014 to Dec. 17, 2014 data) he logged a total of 26 out of 70.

CMFR’s count showed that in the total of reports The Standard published about him, eight stories had him as the subject and two as source, while four merely mentioned him. Stories generally served as vehicles to echo his stand on particular issues. Among the stories that had him as the subject were:

• “Senate bets off and running; Romualdez stresses malasakit,” Feb. 9.
• “Romualdez kicks off campaign in Tacloban,” Feb. 10.
• “Solon pushes gov’t salary hike,” Feb. 11.
• “Romualdez: Plan ahead for displaced PH workers,” Feb. 12.
• “If price is wrong, DTI should sue, says Romualdez,” Feb. 14.

While the Inquirer only had 2 stories with Romualdez in it during the period covered, they have been publishing stories about him as early as January, among them:

• “Romualdez slams slow Bohol rehab,” Jan. 7.
• “Be predictable for business, Martin R urges gov’t,” Jan. 12.
• “Romualdez wants power supply assured for elections,” Jan. 20.
• “Romualdez calls for labor-friendly policies by Congress,” Jan. 22.
• “Romualdez bats for North-South commuter rail system,” Jan. 30.

Significantly, the Chairman of the MST Management Inc., which owns the Standard is Philip Romualdez, the Leyte representative’s brother, who is also the husband of Alexandra Prieto-Romualdez, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Inquirer, in which there were two reports on the candidate on the period covered.