Worth killing for

What is it about public office in this country that every thief, liar, “coup pal,” wife beater and scoundrel of every type will do almost anything to win an elective post?

Once poll victory is achieved, the winner will do everything to hold on to public office indefinitely. This is evident from barangay councilors all the way to the highest levels of government.

Just consider Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the best argument against the Pinoy saying, kung ano’ng puno, siyang bunga (rough translation: the mango tree does not bear a guava, or something like that). After nine interminable years in power, she still isn’t ready to bid goodbye to all that. The insatiable lust is pathological. Where did Cong Dadong and Doña Eva go wrong? Come noon of June 30, 2010, you have to put a wooden stake through GMA and expose her to bright sunlight if you want to make sure she won’t inflict herself on this unfortunate land ever again.

Even Joseph Estrada, disgraced after squandering the opportunities presented by his overwhelming mandate, wants to stage a comeback, although at least he’s honest enough to admit it’s chiefly for personal vindication.

After Erap’s landslide win in 1998, despite an aggressive campaign against him by the Catholic Church (that should show politicians how influential the Church is with voters), entertainers rushed to seek public office, seeing it as a good career move once their star power has dimmed.

Erap’s drastically shortened presidency made voters see the difference between the real and reel worlds. Almost all entertainers have been trounced at the polls since Erap’s ouster.

Today there’s a long list of military officers and cops, mostly retired or about to retire, or who are detained for coup attempts, who are running for various posts in the 2010 elections.

Even boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao, who knows he isn’t going to be a spring chicken forever, wants a second stab at politics, after being clobbered by the Antonino clan in 2007. These days even priests are going on leave to seek public office, and for what?

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It can’t be the pay, which is dismal compared to salaries in the private sector. But the perks can be worth so much more than what can be earned in the corporate world.

Let’s start with the cheaper perks. There are the chauffeurs and armed bodyguards, and service vehicles with VIP license plates as well as blinkers and sirens that are great for breaking every traffic rule. Depending on the position, similar privileges are extended to spouses, lovers and children.

Dismal pay? Lawmakers get millions every year in pork barrel allocations, apart from budgets for travel, extravagant dinners, and maintenance and operating expenses. Even the gifts and wreaths lawmakers send for “KBL” – kasal, binyag, libing – are charged to Juan and Juana de la Cruz.

Even bigger are the commissions they receive from contractors who are awarded projects picked by the lawmakers under the pork barrel system. Agencies that oppose such awards to unqualified contractors find their annual budgets drastically cut.

Another major source of income is the corporate lobbyist, whose activities legislators refuse to regulate by law. A powerful and immoderately greedy young lawmaker is notorious for demanding P1 million from lobbyists just for a meeting with him.

Such perks are enjoyed, in diminishing amounts down the line, by other elective officials.

The president of the republic, meanwhile, has control over billions of pesos in special funds, a hefty portion of which does not need public accounting. On top of those billions, bigger amounts can be made for merely awarding a government project to a particular company.

You can understand why GMA would scheme to find a way back to power, now that extending her stay in Malacañang beyond 2010 seems out of the question.

Senators estimate that at least P2 billion is needed for a presidential campaign in this country. How can that money be recovered legitimately by the winner and campaign donors, even in six years?

For many in this country, politics has become their families’ principal business, and they are ready to cheat, steal, and kill or be killed to hold on to the business.

A woman who ran unsuccessfully in 2007 against an entrenched kingpin in local politics told me that in their impoverished neck of the woods, an assassin could cost as low as P5 million – peanuts for a crooked warlord, and a fortune for millions in this country.

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Where do work and public service fit in? Sen. Lito Lapid, who is said to be preparing to run again for governor of Pampanga, will ask: you mean those are part of the job description?

Not even sanity is part of the job description. Just ask Sen. Jamby Madrigal, or several members of the House of Representatives.

Every three years or so, we go merrily to the polling centers, putting our faith in the ballot to create a better nation.

But our political system remains feudal and we have not strengthened the institutions that are needed to make elections and democracy work. We lack a professional, merit-based bureaucracy, an efficient and honest judiciary, strong regulatory frameworks, an educated citizenry, and a credible election system.

Around the world, how many despots and plunderers rose to power on the wings of free elections? Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe is just one of many.

In our country, every electoral exercise simply becomes a transfer of power from one set of liars and thieves to a new one, with the victors distributing the spoils to their relatives and cronies.

It is in the interest of these politicians to keep the masses mired in poverty and illiteracy and unchecked population growth, depending for survival on government dole-outs. A better informed electorate, with a personal stake in seeing tax money spent judiciously, has a low level of tolerance for incompetence and corruption.

Our electoral exercises take on the atmosphere of a circus, with the candidates believing that there’s a sucker born every minute – a phrase variously attributed, all inconclusively, to American circus owner P.T. Barnum, one of his business rivals, and a Chicago gambling den operator.

We must stop giving elections and democracy a bad name.