Nacionalista Party (NP) standard bearer Senator Manny Villar Sunday challenged his closest rivals in the presidential race to disclose to the public the identities of their political donors in order to scrutinize the groups or people bankrolling their campaign.

Villar said the donors’ list will also put to the test the propaganda claims of some presidential candidates that they are transparent and that theirs are being fuelled by a “people’s campaign.”

“We’re issuing a proverbial habeas corpus to all the campaign funders of my rivals,” he said.

Although he did not name who his close rivals are, it was clear Villar was directing his challenge to Liberal Party standard bearer Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III and former president Joseph Estrada of the Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP).

Villar said no presidential candidate could claim transparency and independence if he keeps in his stable most of the big-time industrialists and corporate titans and refer to it as a “people’s campaign.”

The NP presidential bet clarified that he has no quarrel with big businessmen pouring their funds into the campaign chest of his closest rivals.

“I just can’t stomach hypocrites who tell the public that they are running a people’s campaign when the combined net worth of all their contributors betrays the very essence of a people’s campaign,” Villar said.

said he understands why the corporate titans are not backing him probably because they perceive him as an “outsider.”

Villar said he has nothing to hide as far as his campaign funds are concerned since he is running and bankrolling his own campaign.

The NP presidential bet also stressed that what he said in his television and radio ads about his impoverished past was not exaggerated or distorted, stressing that he is not ashamed of his past and is proud of climbing up from poverty.

“My television commercials are also not merely a storyboard, but my life story. The jingle ‘Naging Mahirap’ for instance is composed especially for me. I told my life story to the composer, then the song was made,” Villar, who is enjoying a good ranking in some surveys, said.

Villar cited that one in every four Filipino families experience hunger and millions still struggle to put food on their plate or eat even just one full meal a day.