On the final day of the week for regular banking operations, the Supreme Court stopped the implementation of an order issued recently by the Commission on Elections, limiting bank withdrawals to P100,000. Comelec officials said their resolution was meant to discourage vote buying, which is believed to be rampant in the final days before elections.
Surely even Comelec officials, however, must have thought of the arguments against their eleventh-hour resolution. Malacañang, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and bankers argued that the order was sweeping and covered not just politicians or their supporters who intend to distribute cash before the elections.
The potential for serious economic disruption cannot be ignored. But the objective of the Comelec resolution is worth pursuing, and the poll body must find other ways of confronting vote buying. The problem may be as old as the start of free elections in this country where millions of people live a hand-to-mouth existence. For such people, many of them registered voters, saying no to gifts from candidates, whether in cash or kind, is a luxury they cannot afford.
During the Marcos dictatorship, then Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin memorably advised people to take the money but vote according to their conscience. Under the manual voting system, however, a method was devised to get a form of official receipt from those who sell their votes, as proof that candidates were getting what they paid for.
This method has been eliminated under the automated system, so vote buyers can now pin their hopes only on the tacit promise of continued dole-outs if they win. That promise, backed by actual dole-outs during the campaign, may in fact win them votes. This system naturally favors incumbent officials and moneyed candidates. The Comelec, in coordination with other agencies, must develop ways of correcting this weakness in the election system. The measures, which should be able to withstand judicial scrutiny, must be in place by 2016, in time for the general elections.
The public must do its part. It may be a futile appeal in a land where are there are still too many impoverished or unscrupulous voters, but there’s no harm in repeating the reminder that the final vanguards against vote buying are the people themselves. There are no vote buyers where there are no votes for sale.