Breaking gangsters’ hold on politicians

It’s called by many names: bureaucrat-capitalism, crony-capitalism, money politics, campaign strings, illegal contributions. Whatever, it has only one effect: the dependence of politicians on vested interests.

The story is all too familiar. A candidate for local or national office secretly taps a business tycoon for money. The tycoon obliges, but under certain conditions. When the candidate wins, he recovers the cash through rigged public biddings, concessions or franchises. Voters lose the taxes and other government revenues that otherwise could’ve gone to public works.

But recent events added a new twist to the story. Crime syndicates have amassed huge cash troves from narcotrafficking, kidnap-ping, bank robbery and vice that they now can afford to install governors, mayors and legislators. While before, the public could live with politicians’ business cronies big or small, the entry of crime gangs has brought clear and present danger closer to voters’ homes. More so since politicians can infouence the operations of the police and prosecutors, sometimes even the decision of judges. In turn, protected crimi-nality is tearing up the very system under which politicians operate.

Under pressure to reform the system, political party leaders Speaker Jose de Venecia and Sen. Edgardo Angara are pushing separate bills in the House of Representatives and the Senate. They see the answer in open but controlled campaign financing.

The bills of Lakas president de Venecia and Laban chairman Angara have a single aim: raise party funds directly from corporate or individual income taxpayers. The money would then be used for election campaign materials and attendant expenses of travel and rallies, and thus lessen the chances of individual pols to pester tycoons for contributions. "I already gave," the businessman would wave his income-tax return.

De Venecia and Angara differ only in details. Under their bills, a taxpayer can assign a specific amount of his yearly tax dues to his favored party. For de Venecia, it’s a maximum of P100,000 from corporate payers; P5,000 from individuals. For Angara, P100,000 and P20,000, respectively. In any case, the contributions in the form of taxes would go to a Special Fund controlled by the national government. From that fund, government would allocate cash to parties whose national candidates got at least 15 percent of the votes in the last general election. For party-list candidates, it would be 2.5 percent of the total vote. It won’t matter if a ruling party gets more donations to the fund; opposition parties would get the same amount if they meet the 15-percent rule. There would be no point for ruling parties to amass contributions that it would have to share with rivals anyway. It would somehow level the playing field.

De Venecia and Angara concede that parties which get allocations should be subject to stricter rules. Parties already are required by the old Election Code to report all campaign contributions and expenditures. Under the new bills, parties must also submit to a finance audit at the end of each election.

Individual party members will also be subject to stricter rules. Like, they cannot just switch parties after an election. Lavish spending would invite attention and even stricter audits.

Special party funding through taxes is done in industrialized as well as developing countries from Austria to Romania, Canada to Costa Rica, Nicaragua to South Africa. It is far from perfect. The US Republican and Democratic parties get campaign funds from taxpayers through the government. They still had the Enron affair, where certain members of the Bush cabinet apparently let the company’s "creative accounting" pass until it collapsed and sent stock-market investors bankrupt. But the special funding somehow enabled the federal government to break the Mafia’s hold on certain local pols. It also enabled the parties to hire professionals to run their secretariats.

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From the way they’re talking, it seems that security and defense officials already know who’s planting "dud bombs" all over Metro Manila, Cotabato and General Santos. Just that they’re waiting for the police to arrest the perpetrators and link these to the suspected masterminds.

They’ve narrowed down the suspects to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the faction of the Moro National Liberation Front that’s loyal to deposed chairman Nur Misuari. They don’t believe that an Indigenous People’s Federal State Army exists, through that’s the signature on political statements tied to the bombs. It’s just a way of inviting attention to either or both the MILF and the MNLF-Misuari faction, officials theorize.

A security official says it could be the MILF, with whom government peace talks bogged down in March because of cease-fire violations. President Arroyo has authorized back-channel talks to get the separatist leaders to return to the negotiation table. She also has said she still trusts them enough to want a peaceful settlement of the Mindanao question.

A defense official thinks the Misuari group is a more likely suspect. The bombs were first planted on March 18, the MNLF anniversary. It could be Misuari’s way of making the government talk to him, since he is now detained and facing charges of rebellion in connection with the attacks on Army detachments in Sulu a week before the November election at the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao. The MNLF had signed a peace agreement with government in 1996; an MNLF leader is now ARMM governor. Federalism is the MNLF’s alternative to secession.

Let’s talk, Defense Sec. Angelo Reyes told the Federal State Army that he doesn’t believe exists. Knowing that the Army will not surface anyway, that’s probably his way of saying "we know who you are and you know how to reach us."

Let’s hope this episode doesn’t end in a hushed-up forgiveness of the bomb planter. It doesn’t help the peace and order situation any to let bomb scarers go. The last major bomb scare was in Makati in December. A PNP general wangled a confession from an officer who did it. He only scolded the officer and recommended his transfer to the Visayas.

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