How Filipinos elected town officials in the 1800s

With baser stakes, local electoral contests tend to be hotter – employing guns, goons, and gold – than national ones. That’s as true today as it was during the Spanish times.

In the late 1800s the Spanish authorities began to hand over to the indios headship of the pueblo. The highest elective post was gobernadorcillo (mayor). His was a mix of executive and judicial duties: to collect taxes; issue licenses; build and repair roads, bridges, and schoolhouses; oversee the jail and the port; collate evidence and witnesses in criminal cases; decide minor criminal and civil suits; and help the cura (parish priest) keep the townsfolk on the straight and narrow.

Assisting the gobernadorcillo were the teniente (vice) mayor, the juez de policia (chief of police), the juez de sementeras (superintendent of fields), and the juez de ganados (superintendent of livestock). Answerable all were to the Spanish alcalde mayor (governor) of the provincia.

The officials were expected to be true, adept, and agile in serving the Spanish Crown and Church. Barred from office were those with tax arrears, criminal or civil charges, and unclear source of income.

Terms lasted two years. Electors were the principalia, the pueblo’s foremost gentlemen. They consisted of the incumbent gobernadorcillo, the cabezas (heads) de barangay, the capitanes pasados (past officials), and the cabezas reformandos (village ex-chiefs who had sat at least ten years). As well disallowed to vote were those with back taxes and lawsuits.

On the day of election the alcalde mayor arrived with his secretario at the municipio, where assembleds are the cura and principalia. He read the edicts governing voting. Then followed the sorteo and the terna, the selection of those to cast ballots, and the balloting proper. (Sources: Onofre D. Corpuz, Eliodoro G. Robles, Blair & Robertson.)

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The law forbade the principales from discussing before the elections their preferences. Prohibited too was the formation of blocs. More so, vote buying and selling. But these often were broken. Factions would hold clandestine meetings to plot campaigns and chicanery. Rich families would throw banquets, where their candidates were presented and the electors gifted with cash, chicken, goat, or wood products. (These, from studies by Prof. Glenn Anthony May, University of Oregon, of the records of 42 municipal elections in western Batangas in 1887-1894.)

In the sorteo on D-Day were chosen who from the principalia would actually vote for a new gobernadorcillo; the incumbent automatically was among them. The names of each cabeza de barangay was written on papeletas and placed in an urn, those of the capitanes pasados and cabezas reformados in another urn. A boy aged no more than seven would pick from each urn six slips (seven in bigger townships).

The chosen twelve and the sitting gobernadorcillo would retire to a closed chamber with the alcalde mayor, his scribe, and the cura for the terna, or voting proper. The criteria for gobernadorcillo would be read. The thirteen electors would write on ballots two choices. The scribe would tally the votes and record the top two getters. They then would write one name for each of the four other positions, again for tallying and recording.

The alcalde mayor would then announce the winners to the waiting principales. But the list was not final. The floor would be opened for objections. The cura, the Guardia Civil, and concerned principales were encouraged to send oppositions to the capitolio. The alcalde mayor would make his own judgments. Everything was transmitted to the governor general, who would take two months or so to sign the acta (proclamation).

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Two observations arise from Professor May’s research in Batangas. First, not all the chosen officials were rich: only one in three owned a house and lot, and one in four had no steady income. Second, wealthy hacienderos avoided to be elected (to forestall having to fill up deficits in tax collection?) but put up relatives or wards for election. This gave rise to factionalism (parties). In his essay, “Civic Ritual and Political Reality,” May states: “Operating in clear violation of electoral laws and decrees, these power brokers would have a decisive impact on the outcomes.”

Four major groupings, sometimes overlapping, were noted:

• Economic, to push the haciendero’s vested interest. The gobernadorcillo’s annual pay was around P30; the unscrupulous augmented this by stealing from the tax take, illicit dealings, and taking bribes from the patron. In exchange for the last, he would ensure the construction and repair of roads and bridges that led to the haciendero’s estate, mill, or warehouse. Or, he would exact excessive charges on, or concoct charges against competitors.

• The cura’s clique. He strived for influence in the town for, by law, he was required to join in public health, education, agriculture, industry, and commerce.

• Anti-cleric (and anti-Spanish), by those swayed by Del Pilar and Rizal to seek reforms. Gobernadorcillos from Batangas joined others from Southern and Central Luzon in marching to the governor general’s office in Manila in 1888 to petition for the removal of religious orders from parishes due to abuses.

• Personal; some prominent citizens led factions simply due to avenge grudges and family feuds.

So intense were the stakes that cheating marred the elections. Professor May dug up records in which factions swapped charges and countercharge. Like, open feting of electors in the mansion of the cura’s anointed candidate, fraud in the sorteo in not folding the papeletas of a contender’s supporters so these would stay atop the rest when the urn was shaken, fraud in the terna in including ineligible candidates, vote buying and coercion of electors, delivery of huge amounts of cash to the capitolio on election eve, and mis-recording of names and votes.

Even the Revolution was marked by heated balloting. After losing in the Katipunan’s Tejeros Convention, Bonifacio denounced the failure of the election that declared the Magdalo’s Aguinaldo as president. This led to Bonifacio’s execution.

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