Money politics

There’s an exodus from Metro Manila to the provinces again, although on a lesser scale than during the Holy Week break.

The reason? A house helper I know gave me an idea: on vacation in her Visayas hometown, she has asked for an extension of her leave so she can vote and receive P2,000 promised by a local candidate.

I’ve heard similar stories from other employers. Election watchdog volunteers are reporting that people are being promised from P200 to P500 each by certain candidates, to be paid on election day. Candidates are reportedly shouldering even the bus fares of the voters.

It’s not the first election in which I’ve heard such reports. Voters in previous polls have been given not just cash but also bags of rice and canned goods.

Now you know why voter turnout is so high in almost all elections (except those for the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan) in our dysfunctional democracy.

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Eric Alvia, secretary general of the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections or Namfrel, told The Chiefs this week on Cignal TV’s One News that for barangay captains acting as local leaders, the amount could be as high as P500,000 each. This is supposedly for distribution to voters, he said, but it’s not unusual for some local leaders to pocket the bulk of the money.

Namfrel has data analytics that can track the vote from the casting of the ballot to transmission and counting. But Alvia says no technology has been developed to track who might be giving and receiving money in exchange for votes. In this campaign, vote buyers have learned to use business networking, making it even tougher to follow the money trail.

He says one factor fueling the problem is that there are voters who see the money as daños or damages, for lousy service rendered by an incumbent official.

Others see the vote buying as a redistribution of at least some of the politicians’ wealth, even if much of it likely came from corruption.

A more common attitude follows the advice famously given by the late Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin on how people should react to vote buying. Take the money, he said, but vote according to your conscience.

Politicians are aware of such attitudes, and naturally want to get their money’s worth. One way of putting an end to this poison in our electoral system is to see to it that vote buyers don’t get what they pay for.

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It’s interesting that the Commission on Elections has announced a “war” on vote buying. It’s a long overdue war, but I don’t know how the Comelec intends to go about it exactly – and win.

The Comelec is reportedly tapping the help of the Philippine National Police and the Department of the Interior and Local Government. Despite the public pronouncements of their officials, the PNP and DILG have personnel who engage in partisan activities. The Integrated Bar of the Philippines is also being tapped for assistance, but the IBP is said to be riven by infighting.

How do you wage a campaign against vote buying? The whistle-blower on campaign anomalies usually comes from the camp of a political opponent. But what if all the contenders are buying votes?

PNP chief Oscar Albayalde has reportedly been swamped with complaints about vote buying. What does he intend to do about them? A starting point, the Comelec said yesterday, is to file a formal complaint with the Kontra Daya task force.

The vote buyer will want to have proof of purchase. The Comelec can strictly enforce the ban on the use of mobile phones while filling out the ballot, to prevent people from taking photos of their vote. There are enough deputized poll personnel to enforce this.

Even without such proofs, however, candidates can infer from the results if they got what they paid for. And winners can retaliate, by neglecting the delivery of services such as street repairs and regular garbage collection in communities that went for their opponent. Some barangay officials who are violating the prohibition on partisan activities during elections are in fact issuing such warnings as they campaign for certain candidates.

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The best foil against vote buyers, of course, is an electorate whose vote isn’t for sale. But try telling that to voters for whom P2,000 is a fortune. Or to a house helper for whom P2,000 is an irresistible bonus during her annual vacation.

Tell them that you can’t trust a vote buyer to serve the public honestly, and they will say that all politicians are crooks, anyway.

As far as such voters are concerned, all politicians think of themselves first, and then their families, cronies and supporters. If there are any crumbs left over from the spoils of victory, these might go to the country and the winners’ constituents. Politicians might think of God and eternal damnation, but only on their deathbed.

So if they’re all same-same, might as well pick the candidate who knows how to share the loot.

The war against vote buying could be helped by raising public awareness of the fact that money doesn’t grow on trees. All that cash for buying votes can’t possibly come from the modest earnings of a Filipino public servant.

Some of it can be outright dirty money – from jueteng, drug trafficking, smuggling, even kidnapping. Some funds are donated by persons who expect a handsome return on investments, such as sweetheart deals and appointments to government posts, even for the unqualified, in case the candidate wins.

And some of the cash is stolen from public funds. That’s people’s money – what the government collects for every liter of gasoline we consume, every kilowatt-hour of electricity, every drop of water, every phone card, medicine, bus fare. It comes from the tax automatically withheld from our income.

We need an aggressive public awareness campaign of where taxes go, so that people can be outraged when public funds are stolen or misspent, or used to send thieves, jueteng lords, drug dealers and misfits to public office.

All those millions spent for buying votes will surely have to be recovered by the crooks, with top-rate interest. And the return on investment is unlikely to come from honest sources. This guarantees bad governance and abuse of power.

In picking candidates, we cannot be reminded often enough: we get the government we deserve.