Nuisance

Walking to the Commission on Elections main office in Manila the other day from our office in Port Area I passed by teenage boys playing cara y cruz along the sidewalk.

Manila’s street people, soon to enjoy a four-day “family outing” during the APEC summit, enjoyed the cooler afternoon air after a brief downpour. In the bushes along Bonifacio Drive a woman slept and a man sat with a blank stare, while along the sidewalk a young girl ate what looked like an ice cream cone.

The city’s homeless would have liked to hear the promises made by the individuals who filed their certificates of candidacy (COC) for president.

Apart from homesteads and jobs, a candidate promised free college education, sufficient water supply and even – possibly because of the approach of All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days – free burial for all.

That was Candidate No. 20 for president, and it was just the first day of filing COCs. He was the one announcing his campaign platform when I walked into the Comelec main office. His English was fluent and I was becoming impressed with his plans to encourage more manufacturing, modernize infrastructure, decongest Metro Manila and build a navy “second to none,” until he promised to “legalize” the four seasons of winter, spring, summer, fall and replace our “old” rainy and dry seasons. In his application form, he checked three boxes in his civil status: single, legally separated, and annulled/divorced.

As of yesterday afternoon, the number of presidential aspirants who had filed their COCs had ballooned to 37. They included the usual nutcases dismissed in previous elections as nuisance bets, plus new ones such as the guy who wants his name listed on the ballot as “Lucifer.”

It doesn’t speak well of our presidents that so many Filipinos think any lunatic can seek the nation’s highest office.

I went to the Comelec just to see what the first day of the circus was like. A red carpet has been rolled out for candidates, leading from the room where the COC is filed to the stage where every candidate can face the press and enjoy his 15 minutes of fame. All the networks and media organizations were there last Monday.

Comelec Chairman Andy Bautista, whose eye bags are growing with the approaching elections, said the poll body couldn’t stop anyone from filing a COC.

I was tempted to file a COC as well – being a presidential candidate, even a losing one, can look good on a c.v. But Chairman Andy told me I needed to have the capability to mount a national campaign or else I would be dismissed as a nuisance bet. Being officially declared a “nuisance” is not good on the c.v. so I dropped the idea.

But seriously, that required capability to mount a campaign nationwide may have to be revisited by Comelec officials and concerned groups.

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In the age of the Internet, a person can reach a national constituency, including the 10 million Filipinos working overseas, through social media. And this type of campaign can be conducted on a shoestring budget.

South Korean pop star Psy reached a global audience with his hit “Gangnam Style” through YouTube, where the music video became the first to be viewed two billion times as of last year.

The technology is here. Why should a “national campaign” have to be so expensive?

Campaign finance, as I have written, is often the root of large-scale corruption in our country. During the 2010 general elections, I was told that P2 billion was a modest budget for a presidential campaign. Aspiring for a Senate seat called for a war chest of P150 million.

TV ads alone can cost a fortune. Then there are the substantial expenses for logistics as candidates move around the country. Expenses for transportation, meals and entertainment (including half-naked, dry-humping Playgirls) to draw crowds can be considerable. Local political leaders – usually barangay personnel – ask for funds to invest in grassroots patronage and secure votes.

Elections allow for some redistribution of wealth, forcing politicians, crooked and honest alike, to share at least some of their money with the people. But even the wealthiest candidates like sourcing campaign expenditures from donors.

Heavy political debts are incurred during campaigns. The debts are repaid, in case of victory, through lucrative sweetheart deals or government sinecures for the donor, a virtual smuggling license, or appointments and promotions for the donor’s relatives and friends.

Since only .001 percent of the population controls national wealth, the same individuals are the biggest donors in every election to the war chests of political parties and serious contenders for the nation’s top two positions. Donors aren’t exactly like political “butterflies” or turncoats; the moneymen are invited, even wooed, to support parties and candidates.

Consider the major financiers of all three serious presidential aspirants. Daang matuwid now counts among its supporters one of the biggest financial backers of the previous Malacañang occupant.

The incestuous marriage of political power and big money has ensured that regardless of regime change, the .001 percent would maintain the monopolies, oligopolies and other structures that in other countries would have warranted indictments for unfair competition and violations of anti-trust laws.

Those structures kill the average Filipino’s enterprising spirit. Small and medium enterprises will never take off in our country because the odds are heavily stacked in favor of big enterprises and businesses controlled by local political dynasties. The average Pinoy, unable to compete, typically just goes overseas.

In case of victory, candidates who are indebted in the hundreds of millions to a handful of individuals or groups will be focused on repaying those donors, whose support will be needed again for reelection.

To discourage this setup, a law-abiding citizen with respectable educational attainment and employment record, with a sane platform but lacking a party machinery or hefty war chest should be given a chance to run for high office. Without fear of being dismissed as a nuisance.

There might be a few of them among those 37 candidates so far.