The camp of Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte of Davao City who runs for the highest post in the country resorts to crowd funding to support his national campaign by releasing an “Inspiration Cards” as his funding source. The Duterte camps will be using the scratch cards in several denominations that will serve as source of funding.
According to a statement released by the Duterte camp, the “inspirational cards” are actually scratch cards which is primarily a contribution card that Mayor Duterte’s supporters buys in various denominations. The cheaper cards priced from Php 25 to Php 500 are paper while the higher denominations from Php 1000 all the way to Php 500,000 are made out of PVC.
All campaign contributions to Mayor Duterte are traceable, the inspiration cards are like regular scratch card, there is a PIN number that can be scratch out at the back of the card which a contributor sends along with his name and address via sms to a gateway number to register his/her contribution to the system.
The systen then acknowleges the amount contributed and it also builds confidence that the money is accounted by the campaign management. The cards can also served as a deterrent for possible cheating in the PCOS machines because the database of names of card holders and their addresses can be matched to the Comelec provided voter’s list, allowing the system to determine the number of card holders in each precinct as revealed by Daisy Encabo, in-charged of the project.
The Duterte camp explained that the inspirational card is the first in the history of the Philippine elections where the presidential campaign is people-funded.