The camp of President-elect Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino III has belied claims by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) that it still has P37 million worth of excess campaign funds at hand.

Aquino’s spokesperson, Atty. Edwin Lacierda, said the funds left from their campaign kitty were already used to finance their camp’s printing of sample ballots, their poll watchers’ allowances, and their lawyers’ fees.

“These expenses are not required to be reported under the law because they are expenses incurred after May 8. So it is no longer true that there are funds still left from our campaign contributions,” Lacierda told reporters in an interview outside the residence of Aquino along Times Street in West Triangle, Quezon City.

Lacierda reiterated that the Comelec cannot compel them to include in its expenditure report the campaign materials contributed by their supporters, citing the difficulty to monitor the initiatives of campaign volunteers.

“Some tarpaulins, T-shirts, ballers etc. came from our volunteers. Those items did not pass through our office. It will be difficult to monitor them so we did not declare them. But what is certain is that all campaign contributions that we got and all expenses we made are all accounted for,” he said.

“What we have control over is only what we spent and what we produced.

Those were all published in the report we submitted to Comelec,” he added, referring to the expenditure report that disclosed the Aquino camp’s spending of P403 million out of the P440 million campaign contributions it got.

Aquino’s declaration is well within the half-a-billion limit for campaign contributions but the Comelec said it is possible that some of the donations were not divulged.

Comelec Resolution 8944 allows candidates for president and vice president with political parties to spend P10 per registered voter while other candidates who also have parties may spend R3 per voter. Candidates without the support of political parties may spend P5 for every voter.