soul for sell

During Martial Law, former Philippine Vice-President Emmanuel Pelaez, exclaimed: “What is happening to our country general?” He was of course referring to the spate of killings and the failed attempt at his life. With the massive vote-buying during the October 29, 2007 barangay elections, one cannot help but join in the refrain. Indeed, what is happening to the country.

Democracy is based on the precept that a state is formed among free men. Republicanism in turn is a democratic government that allows the free people to choose the leaders who shall run the state. Take out freedom, and democracy becomes a farce.

A friend texted me that the candidate he supported lost due to vote-buying. The eventual winner gave P500.00 to the voters, and even the leaders of the opposing candidate were bought. On the eve of the elections, the leaders deserted their candidate after being given money by the opponent. Of course, their were idealists who run but lost miserably due to lack of funds.

It his hard to imagine why a candidate has to spend P300,000.00 to win a seat which compensates him only P60,000.00 annually or P180,000.00 for the three-year term. The only way to recoup the election expenses is to steal government coffers. One politician would even tell his constituents that they should not expect help after all the votes were bought, and they have to wait until the next elections.

Vote-buying, and the other side of the coin, vote-selling, make a mockery out of elections. In this situation, the elite who has the economic power simply consolidates its grip over the people by having political power. The status quo makes it difficult for the poor to run while making it easier for the rich to plunder the treasury with impunity. After all, money wins elections. And the more these leaders plunder the state, the poor becomes poorer, and the more they become vulnerable to vote buying, and the politicians’ grip over the poor getting stronger. Karl Marx, in this sense is right: The economic superstructure determines consciousness, including politics.

Ask a voter why he sells his vote, more often the reason ranges from simple need to purchase rice to utter cynicism in the system. A day before the election, the ball boys in our tennis club were absent; they were there lining up in the gate of a candidate to receive the price for their votes. For them, the P200.00 they receive would translate to two days food on the table. When you argue against hunger, don’t expect to win, unless with your argument, you offer them food. For them, the issue is not about the ideals of democracy and good governance; rather, it is surviving today, and let tomorrow worry itself.

 

Why this piece is titled soul for sell? The freedom to choose is the most valuable freedom in a democracy. If you take out this freedom the state is bereft with a moral authority for governance. The people in turn have no right to expect good governance. Like Faust, the people have sold their souls to the devil, err politician. So they should not expect heaven for a government. And why should they sell their soul? In a situation when your life is threatened with hunger, there is no sense talking about tomorrow, good governance, and even the afterlife. The need is here and now. Only the would-be-saints can talk about paradise in the face of gnawing hunger.

But perhaps, we have to be saints if we want to get out from this vicious cycle of vote-buying, and plunder by the politicians for them to buy votes, economic debacle, and the poor becoming more vulnerable to sell their votes. The country needs martyrs and saints in us. This act of martyrdom is simply refusing to sell the vote in the face of wrenching hunger. This way, we may redeem our souls, and our nationhood.

how to cheat in the election

Don’t get me wrong. I am not writing this to encourage you to cheat election in the Philippines. Two days before the May 14, 2007 election, I was commissioned by the Liberal Party , a dominant opposition party, to lecture its poll watchers. The poll watchers were partisans so I focused on how to counter cheating, and how else can you counter it if you do not know the schemes.

My lecture was a combination of the Omnibus Election Law and the experiences I have had. Here how it went.

1. SLEEPERS LOSE - He who wakes up late will lose. The law says that the Board of Election Inspector (BEI) may convene at 6:00 o’clock in the morning and may open the ballot box to prepare the election paraphernalia at 6:15 a.m. The precinct is open to the voters at 7:00 o’clock in the morning. The opening and closing of the ballot box at this time is crucial. If the poll watcher for a political party is not around, it is easy to put filled-up ballots in the compartment of the ballot box for the valid votes. A watcher who arrives late will only legitimize the voting in that precinct when in fact cheating has been done.

So what time a watcher should go to the polling place? Five o’clock in the morning. I heard an uproar from my listeners. That is too early. Actually, it is not. Note that the official time for the polling place is the time determined by the chairman of the BEI. The chairman can adjust the watch in advance so that the time when the ballot box may be opened and closed will be earlier than the standard time. If you arrive at 6:00 a.m., the watch of the chairman may be already 6:15 a.m. So the ballot box has been opened and closed. The watcher’s job is now fiat accompli.

Based on my monitoring, the army of the poll watchers I lectured arrived at the polling places around 5:00 o’clock in the morning.

2. THE DAYTIME CHEATERS – There are four cheating schemes that may be done during the voting time from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

a. THE OPEN BALLOT – a voter who has sold his ballot will vote in tandem with another voter who will check each other’s ballot. The law says that filling-up of the ballot must be done within the secrecy folder. A voter may not show his ballot to another. The poll watcher should see to it that the voter will not show his ballot to another inside the polling place nor should the voter be allowed to roam around nor go out of the voting area.

b. THE CARBON PAPER AND CAMERA - the voter who has been bought must show proof that he has voted for the candidate-buyer. When he fills-up his ballot, there is a carbon paper which will show the names he voted for. Or, if he goes high-tech, he can take a picture of his filled-up ballot using the cell phone with camera.

c. THE FLYING VOTER - I have reviewed the masterlist of voters of the Comelec, at least in my area, and found out that there are still registered voters who have been long dead, or have been out of town. Using the names of these voters, an impostor may vote in behalf of the dead. A watcher, if he is not sure of the identity of the voter, may challenge the voter, and the BEI is obligated to ask for identification card from the voter. But the identification card is easy to secure. You execute an affidavit about your identity and you can secure a postal ID. You can even have a fake ID which can easily pass as genuine to an untrained eye. Besides, these voters may stampede within the 30-meter radius at around 3:00 p.m. , the close of voting hours. However, if they are within that radius, they will be allowed to vote. Considering their number, the stampede will cause the watchers to relax on their identity challenge.

d. CADENA DE AMOR – Otherwise translated, the chain of love, which is a misnomer because this is a chain to perpetrate cheating. The scheme goes this way. One voter will get the original ballot but will keep it and instead use the fake ballot. The original ballot will be filled-up and given to the next voter in the chain. That voter gets his ballot, but drops the now filled-up ballot of the previous voter. The chain goes on. This is easy actually to check. The serial number of the ballot must coincide with the ballot that a voter fills-up. However, watchers usually, after several hours, get tired, and the job is left alone to the chairman of the BEI who is the usual chief implementor of this scheme.

3. THE NIGHT OWLS - they operate after the voting hours, when everybody, including the public is already sleepy and tired. They usually operate after midnight. Hereunder are the different species of the night owls.

a. THE ILLITERATE CHAIRMAN - when the night draws near, and everybody is weary and fatigued, the chairman will have an adrenaline surge, pumped-up with his desire to enforce his scheme. Suddenly, the chairman won’t know how to read anymore. If the ballot says ‘ESCUDERO’, he can read it as ‘DEFENSOR’. The watchers who are already sleepy do not have the energy to stand at the back of chairman when he reads the ballot.

b. THE TALLYIST - when the eyes are not watching, the one in-charge of the tally sheet will simply tally a vote to his favored candidate, even if that vote should have been credited to another.

c. THE SWITCHER - suddenly, a black-out occurs. When there is no light, the night owls operate. The chairman who has the filled-up ballots under his sleeves, will switch the ballots. You can secure the ballots for a fee from the COMELEC operatives.

 

d. THE SNATCHER – human energy can endure that much only. Beyond the 24 hour’s duty, he will snap somehow. When the ballot box is transported from the polling precinct to the canvassing area, there would be a tendency that the watcher won’t watch the ballot box, and lo and behold, the ballot box is snatched and replaced with another whose contents have been prepared by a candidate or political party.

3. BIG-TIME CHEATERS – This is now the turn of the “dagdag-bawas ” operative. When the election returns are canvassed, the comelec official who has been paid will simply put a zero and the cheating becomes exponential. If a favored candidate has a 52 in the election return, a zero will be added and the number is now 520. If this comelec official is caught, he will simply charge it to clerical error of the BEI and not his.

The schemes outlined above depend largely on human frailty. It is not easy to be on guard of the election proceeding when a watcher gets too weary and sleepy as the counting can go on for hours, day and night. Computers actually can do the job. But the Election Computerization Law has been gathering dust for almost ten years now. It seems that no one, except the people, would want it implemented. The present system depends largely on human endurance. However, a poll watcher cannot simply last for 24 hours duty. Along the way, he will loosen his guard. If you computerize the system, you are taking out the human factor, and the room for cheating becomes slim and in fact, the only way to cheat is to hijack the computer system which can be easily detected. Understand then why our politicians abhor the computerization.

election 101

I thought that being part of a province-wide campaign core for three elections have taught me the ABC of elections. I now realize that it’s one thing to be a planner, but it’s entirely different to be the foot soldier. The arm-chair politician may have the loftiest of ideas but the best idea is nothing if it is not tested, felt, and sold in the marketplace. And the marketplace is in the mountains, farmlands, and the slum areas where ideals clash diametrically with the stark realities of having to survive on a daily basis. How can you talk of ideals when the mouths need to be feed?

Two decades ago, when my learning in the university had so fired-up my ideals that I almost went underground, the thought of giving dole-outs to gain votes was abomination of what democracy stands for. But as the years passed, and my experiences in political campaigns are added to my resume, I am afraid I am losing grip of those ideals I once fervently espoused.

It was in 1994 when my partner in the law firm urged me to run for the provincial board member, a position in the provincial legislative council. I had the chance of winning considering that I had three municipalities which I considered as bailiwicks. But knowing that money had to be given to voters, I declined. The right of suffrage is so sacred that it should not be bought in the market just like a commodity.

Democracy is premised that every man is free, and his political decisions are not restrained by economic want. You take away this freedom, you virtually erase the basis of democracy, and the novel idea that the constitution is the social contract of free men. Even God has given us the free will, so that we can choose between right and wrong.

For one week straight, we went around campaigning. Where there are people gathered, we stopped, heard their woes, and then we promised to work on these problems. But the promises we made did not ring on them. They have heard litanies of promises, but their plight have not been alleviated. They have ceased dreaming, and much more to believe in the dreams politicians weave and dangle before them. Nope, they are not hopeless of the system. Hopelessness is a mere negative energy of hope. What they have of the system is apathy, the “nothing-matters-attitude”.

So when we went near them, they would ask money to buy liquor, some for medicines, and still others for any reason they can concoct. In short, when you go near the voters during the campaign period, they want to skin your hide. It is only during the campaign period the people can get even with politicians. The rest of the year, it is the politician that would bleed-white the resources of the voters.

When these voters ask for money, I am almost tempted to tell them, “Wait, we have not been in power yet, we did not get any of your money”. More often, I was almost gripped with the surge to tell these voters that you deserve your politicians. But during election period, the voters are the customers, so they are always right.

When people are not even assured of food for the next meal, you don’t expect ideals; that is reserved for the saints and mystics who can divine earthy realities during fasting. But let us face it. The people don’t have the fortitude of saints. If they miss one meal, they cringe on their stomachs, and look for food. And if the hunger becomes unbearable, they forget even the laws that could lock them in jail. In the Philippines, hunger incidence is the highest in Asia. Do you expect then a meaningful election?

This election, the people expect a windfall of cash. And if you cannot deliver, they won’t vote for you, even if you have the most impressive credentials. To them, a brilliant and a dumb politician are alike. The only difference is that the brilliant one robs the public coffers with the niceties of the laws, just like what former President Ferdinand Marcos did; the dumb ones like Erap Estrada go to jail even before they can enjoy the loot.

True enough, there are still voters who vote based on conscience. But these are the people whose basic needs are met. Karl Marx may have been mistaken in his prescription, but the diagnose that the economic superstructure determines political consciousness cannot be more true. In a country where the people living below the poverty line accounts for 70% of the population, the voice of the thinking voters is lost in the wilderness. In a popular democracy, the voice of the multitude prevails.

I am not running for any political position yet. I am campaigning for my candidate, who throughout his voting record, has refused to receive a penny from a politician. His record in public service has been sterling and unblemished. But come lection day, money has to be doled-out. Otherwise, he does not stand a chance of winning. For him, it is a bitter pill to swallow, but swallow he must.

 

This election has been a trial run for the political career I am building. Come that time, I may have to kiss goodbye to the ideals of democracy I once held in my youth. Ironically, have to abandon the ideals in order for me to join the bigger democratic debate.

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Tuesday May 8, 2007 – 02:00pm (CST) Edit | Delete

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