By Leonardo Micua

 

AS I was writing this column, it was only few hours before the campaign of candidates running for positions in the May 9 elections will draw to a close. . . But if you think that the candidates will pause and re-think their strategies to improve their chances, you’re wrong.

They are still actively campaigning the usual way, though incognito, to ensure their victory  over their respective opponents.

In fact, many have just moved to the next phase of the campaign, which in Pangasinan, is known as “pakurongan“, meaning the candidate literally sneaks into the abodes of big families to distribute cash in exchange for all the family members’ votes.

On the eve of the elections, expect the “pakurong” to be done in the streets. That’s when people are still in the streets up to the wee hours, waiting for the campaigners of the politician to come and dole out cash to buy their votes.

Some will prepare “lugaw” to be shared with their neighbors while expecting the vote-buyers to gate-crash and dole out the cash and sample ballots.

We learned that the tradition of “pakurongan” originated in Dagupan City, started by a politician known to have a war chest for dole-out. Today, the practice has reached other municipalities where, aside from cash, politicians distribute goods like trays of eggs, tin cans of bagoong and groceries placed inside plastic pails in their respective vote-buying  sprees.

It has since been a joke in neighborhoods that after the election, some households can already put up mini-groceries in front of their houses because of the supply of grocery items they received from vote-buyers.

Our colleague Rolly was exasperated when he received a stub distributed in their neighborhood by the henchmen of a candidate. Rolly’s name was contained in that stub that had a wrong birthdate.

At the back of that stub is a QR code that can only be deciphered by a scanning machine, said Rolly. (Vote-buyers now use QR codes for purposes of validating data and claim). He was told a scanning machine will validate the name of the bearer of the stub and he can claim his prize at a certain place in the town by showing his stub. Naturally, Rolly did not go as directed. His vote is not for sale.

Vote-buying has, indeed, gone sophisticated in Pangasinan over the years. How the vote-buyer got the name of Rolly and his address and his voting precinct is still a puzzle to him.

This vote-buying using technology was used by a rich politician some six years ago but it backfired. He lost heavily in that election. A candidate for mayor may have improved the mechanics of the system and was able to win by a thousand votes, we heard.

Now, it is being widely used by almost all candidates to improve their odds at winning.

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In the program “Tontungan ed PIA”, an official of PPRCV in Pangasinan was dismayed by reports that in some places of Pangasinan, the buying price of one vote was from P1,500 to P3,000. Then it went up to P5,000 and more, four days before the election.

He said vote-buying and selling are very despicable acts in every election in Pangasinan and practically all over the country. He considers it a sin even if people will receive the money and ultimately vote in accordance with the dictate of their conscience. The best thing to do is the reject the vote-buyer from the very start, he intoned. 

The PPRCV and the Comelec have so far failed to discourage vote-buying and selling despite their series of voters’ education campaign.

It is poverty that is driving the people to fall for the vote-buying of the rich candidates, they who ultimately steal the money of the people once they are in power. I heard a tricycle driver telling he had no alternative but to gladly receive the P1,000 “pakurong” of one candidate because he was only getting his share of the loot that he will steal from the coffer.

That mindset of the poor Filipino is hard to counter. 

God save Dagupan and the Philippines!

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