Votes for sale

By Annalyn Tamondong

TWO weeks ago, as I got home from my workplace in Urdaneta City, I found my older brother intently filling up a form. He looked so serious about putting in all the information required and I thought that was quite strange because I know for a fact that he hated all that ‘filling-up thing’ task back in college.

So I asked him what was up and he showed me the paper. It turned out to be some kind of a political form. Now that really got me even more curious so I asked him what the heck it was for.

He plainly answered: “You know, if you want to be paid five hundred bucks and above, you’ve got to get one for yourself.”

Just as I suspected.

And it wasn’t just my brother who was involved in it. There were many others of them. Other people in our house, people from my barangay, and other parts of my town, which ironically is known as ‘The Pilgrimage Site of the North’!

From talking about it with other people, I know that others from different towns in and outside Pangasinan are also selling their votes for P500 up to a thousand, which I understand seems to be the highest bid floating around.

I told my manong, with an obvious tone of disgust, that “Never will I sell my vote!”. As I walked out on my brother, I noticed that some of my aunts, uncles and cousins were at our balcony and I heard them say, “How stupid of her to say that!”, “Ay tanga!”, obviously referring to me.

Then one of them actually approached me and told me that I do not have the slightest idea why people sell their votes. She asked me, “What do you think is better to do, save your stomach or save your ideals?”

I did not answer back out of respect for my relative who was an elder. But I just hated it. I abhor the idea of being forced to vote somebody just because that somebody had bought me.

I wanted them to understand that it is not a matter of saving your stomach or saving your ideals. If they think that they have saved their stomach, fine, but don’t they realize that they have saved it just for “now” and not forever?

Should that candidate who bought my vote (and the vote of many others) win in the election, surely he or she will try to get back all those expenses for vote-buying by being a corrupt public official who will steal from our public funds.  He or she will be more concerned about recovering his/her spendings rather than thinking about how to improve the economic status of the people in general.

Now I ask, “Is that what you call saving your stomach or actually ruining your future?”

I do not wish to post myself as an idealist. I just want to be as honest as I can be. And the truth is I want things to change, and I mean real changes — changes that will bring about improvement in our lives.

(Annalyn earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in 2008 in UP and has since been teaching at the Urdaneta City University as a part-time instructor while pursuing a master’s degree at the Pangasinan State University.)

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