Punchline
Are we now a nation of vote-sellers?
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
Now that the people have spoken (either out of conviction or after having sold their votes to the highest bidders), I can only wonder whether Pangasinan’s towns and cities will continue to have a better deal, or more of the same, or worse, under the newly elected stewards of our local government units.
My future favorite governor, Amado “Spine” Espino, has pledged to be in the province a lot more than what outgoing governor was prepared to do during his 9-year term. Hmmm… let’s see. And we hope staying in the province longer means more concrete outputs for the province. The last thing the province needs is a visible yet do-nothing executive.
Then, I hope my future favorite mayor, Al Fernandez, realizes he will have his hands full to prove to his detractors that he still has what it takes to run the city. What I do know is that he can’t be the same mayor that he was since a lot of things have moved on under my still favorite mayor Benjie Lim. (I have to concede that except for the fact that most of Mr. Benjie’s major projects were evidently tainted with kickbacks, his projects did a lot to drastically change the make-up of the city).
My future favorite public executives will have to do better than take a leisurely walk from the starting line! People expect them to hit the ground running!
***
THE WORST IS YET TO COME – Speaking of my favorite mayor Mr. Benjie, am afraid he’s ill-advised if he thinks losing the elections was already the worst thing that could happen to him. Going to jail is.
He continues to dig his political grave deeper with the ongoing illegal construction at the Magsaysay Park.
But I feel more for his fellow conspirators who knowingly took part in the scheming for that project in the city. They will be dragged to the pits with no one coming to their defense and succor because their principals will now simply fend for themselves.
It’d be prudent for my favorite mayor to suspend the construction and allow the new city administration to either correct, stop or continue it to beat the filing of the complaint against him and his cohorts before the Ombudsman.
Meanwhile, I doff my hat to him for his statesman-like gesture in accepting his defeat. For his own sake, therefore, I hope he will end his term on this note, not as a respondent in a complaint before the Ombudsman.
***
NOW, A SELLERS’ MARKET – I woke up early morning on election day to beat the confusion and long queue at the polling place in Bonuan District in Dagupan City.
As I drove to the school where I’ve been voting for the last 4 elections, I suddenly felt I was headed in the wrong direction. Instead of seeing throngs of people walking to the school, groups of noisy and excited voters were walking in my direction, away from the polling places! Could they possibly know about a last minute change in the location of polling places, I asked myself as I slowed down feeling lost, no longer certain of my direction. They surely appeared headed in the right direction.
I had to stop and ask a parked tricycle driver why people were headed in the opposite direction. The amused driver sheepishly replied in Pangasinan, “They heard that someone out there is buying votes.”
Goodness, people were going out of their way to sell their votes! Then, I wondered if the same scene was happening simultaneously across the country. Deep inside I knew the answer – it was happening.
Before my very eyes, I saw that it was no longer the phenomenon of “vote-buying” in Philippine politics that’s spreading but “vote-selling”!
What has happened to us?
***
Why has vote-buying become so rampant? And why are our people now so eager to sell their votes today?
Candidates have since become so daring and intrepid offering to buy votes all over the place because they know too well that the gesture will never be condemned but instead welcomed by voters, to be precise, by the poor, impoverished voters that compose the country’s majority. Alas, the intention does not end there.
Candidates who win by vote-buying cannot but seek not only to recoup their expenses but to keep their constituents in their present squalid conditions, the poorer the better, if only to keep them vulnerable and susceptible to vote-buying, a fool-proof strategy to keep them in power for decades for the rest of the family members to enjoy.
Hence, until the number of the middle class households increase over the next decade, we are doomed to be known as the nation that sells its votes to the highest bidders.
***
THE PEOPLE’S DEEP FRUSTRATION. To fully appreciate the serious implications of how the country voted, it’s not enough to see that a clear majority of the senatorial bets of the Genuine Opposition candidates was elected. One has to view it in the context of how the opposition sideswiped the candidates of President Arroyo given their superiority in numbers.
The opposition fielded only 39 candidates for governor out of a possible 72. There were only 144 opposition congressional candidates in a field of 206 districts, and only 416 mayoral opposition candidates for 1826 posts across the country. Anyone who extrapolates further on the statistics, counting the number of candidates for legislative posts in provincial, municipal and city levels that the key opposition candidates had lined up with them, would have given up on the opposition’s cause.
The opposition was clearly outnumbered and outflanked. But, the vaunted machinery of the administration candidates was no match to the deep frustration vented by the populace to the country’s political leaders.
No, it wasn’t the opposition’s chutzpah that did it, rather it was the people’s impatience and anger that boosted the opposition’s market value.
By empowering the opposition in the senate, the Filipinos had one crystal clear message to the Malacanang Palace occupants – “We don’t like what you are doing!”
***
So what’s in store for us in the national political front?
With Genuine Opposition losing precious seats in the Lower House, no impeachment of Mrs. Arroyo can take off simply based on old charges of corruption and cheating. Only an impeachment as a result of another and new national scandal involving her can prosper.
With the Team Unity failing to win a mandate at the senate, the chances of abolishing the senate and establishing a unicameral parliamentary system are nil.
Bottomline: No impeachment and constitutional amendment expected till 2009.
(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/punchline/)
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