By Al S. Mendoza 

 

IN every election, you only have three kinds of candidates.

The politician.  The politician.  And the politician.

No person in his right mind will ever enter an electoral derby.

Know why?

You need a lot of money for you to qualify as a politician.

Actually, to be precise, you need a fortune.

You will spend your wealth to win a position that doesn’t pay you right.

Only an insane will do that?

Not really.

The rich will join an election contest to become richer.  It is all business.

If you aren’t aware of that up to now, you were born yesterday.

To win, a politician will need to spend a lot.

And the surest way to win is to buy votes.

Do you believe that bought voters will actually only get the money and run?

That’s a myth.

By nature, the voter will generally vote for the one giving him money in exchange for his vote.

Only one out of 10 will not do that.  Maybe.

By nature, man’s word of honor still works in this day of Tik Tok and Viber.

The guilty feeling would still normally gnaw at the soul.

Besides, there’s this urban belief that dirty money could cause stomach ache if not dispensed with the politically correct way.

Should that happen, the politician wouldn’t be responsible.

Only the receiver is to blame.

Next to doling out money and distributing goodies in exchange for votes, the politician’s forte is making promises.

To say that a candidate isn’t a master of making promises is like saying dogs hate pig knuckles.

A candidate bereft of promises is bound to lose that is why he will even promise you the moon, the stars and planet Mars just to get your precious vote.

Manny Pacquiao has promised to build a house “for everyone.”

You are talking of almost 70 million of the country’s 110 million population that are homeless.

Pacquiao is a billionaire, yes, but does he really care?

Fulfilling that promise is farthest from his mind.

Hell, uttering the promise is all there is to it: All husk, no meat.

If he gets elected, all Pacquiao has to do is act like a true politician: That is, play his role to the hilt as a promising candidate.

No politician has ever been jailed for breaking a promise, for not fulfilling a promise.

Pacquiao’s presidential rivals have their own promises, too, or they wouldn’t be worthy of being called politicians.

Ping Lacson said he’d fix the government.

Bongbong Marcos said he’d unite the nation.

Isko Moreno said he’d lower taxes.

Leni Robredo is banking on her slogan, “Let Leni Lead.”

Every candidate would always dream of crafting a phrase that would catch the voters’ fancy.

Erap had the best ever with his 1998 battle cry, “Erap Para Sa Mahirap!”

Erap won with that.  After that, the poor remained poor—if not ended up poorer.

No worries. That was just a promise.

As all politicians do.

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