Phnom Penh – The Prime Minister Huns defended his funds by over $1.5 million spent to boost his Facebook posts, while also explaining that the funds did not come from the kingdom's national budget.
He said he has the right to improve his position and pointed out that it was a personal problem, while his communication team has been doing it for several years.
“They used the excuse of me wasting money and I spent $1.5 million. I don't know how much it is because it was done by my team for three to four years, not just one. Sometimes it's 1,000, 2,000 or 5,000 or 5,000. USD. Initially, that's a little more.” He said at the graduation ceremony held at the Asia-European University on February 19.
He added: “Because of this issue, I asked my team to do some research on the topic and found that U.S. President Donald Trump spent $134 million on Facebook between 2018 and 2024.”
His comment appears to be in response to a report by ABC Free Asia, which was released on February 13 that Manet “spent nearly $2 million on Facebook ads in September 2022 to facilitate his Activities, from September 2022 to February 2025.
Manet went on to point out that even then-Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate spent $182 million on short-term campaign advertising in 2024.
In the ASEAN region, he mentioned that Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos also spent $20 million to boost Facebook during the 2020 election.
He continued that among other leaders in ASEAN countries, even on Tiktok, it is common to raise posts to get more perspectives.
He also answered the criticism of why he didn't use the money to help citizens, clarifying that he spent about $1.5 million in scholarships domestically and internationally, and helping poor citizens, veterans, disability centers and many other social undertakings , and many other social undertakings, use his personal funds and donations.
“I advocated this [Facebook posts] I have the right to do so even before I became Prime Minister. Everyone does this – even real estate agents have raised their positions. Not only do they improve themselves on Facebook, they also hire people to do it. ” he said.
