By Al S. Mendoza

 

FROM the ranks of losers in the May 9 elections also come the winners.

Winners in money that is; not in votes.

That’s because losers are mostly businessmen disguised as candidates come election time.  They end up with their pockets lined up with moolah after the vote counting.

Why is that?

Politicians are also among the shrewdest of entrepreneurs.

Recall what I keep saying here: There are three kinds of candidates come election season.

One is running truly to serve the people.  He is one in a million.

Another is running for the fun of it.  His mantra is, “I might win, you know.”  A joker that laughs at his own joke.

As Dolphy once famously said it, when asked if he should go into politics:  “Paano pag nanalo ako?”

The third candidate is running for the funds of it.  The funds he keeps in the safe.  Because he asks for donations in the guise of campaign spending.

Does anybody know where his donations go?

The receiver is free of any accountability.

Is the donor aware at all whether his money was spent or not?

Only the candidate-cum-businessman knows.

And, most often than not, he doesn’t spend everything.

It’s easy to identify such feller.

He runs almost all of the time.

As if by design, he also keeps losing but, at the same time, he keeps winning, too.

Didn’t Isko Moreno admit having accumulated an excess of election budget?

He didn’t return it to his donors and he is justified.  He is not duty-bound.  No law would stop him from keeping the money.

In fairness, he said he went to the BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) to seek advice.

“I was told to pay the tax and that’s it,” he said.

He next laughed on his way to the bank.

Isko ran again last May.  And he lost again.  I wonder if he had piled up another bundle of excess contribution to his campaign kitty.

If he did, good for him.  Some guys have all the luck.

If you look at the SOCEs (Statement of Contribution and Expenditure) of both our winning and losing candidates last May, you will find that many of them did not spend their own money.

Can you believe that?

The SOCE is a Comelec (Commission on Elections) requirement to see if the voter expense required in candidate spending is followed.

It is P10 per voter for presidential candidates, P5 and P3 for the rest down the ladder.

Curiously, most presidential candidates, including BBM, didn’t spend a single centavo from their own pockets—spending only donations from contributions.

Not surprisingly, Manny Pacquiao coughed out his own money to go with a modest amount from contributors. Why because he is a certified billionaire, his billions legitimately earned from his boxing career.

But do you honestly believe each of the 10 presidential candidates spent only P10 per voter?

That amount can buy you, at the most, only two pieces of pan de sal.

So, who is fooling who?

You think BBM spent only 600-plus million pesos of contributions for his 31-plus million voters last May?

The man in the street knows overspending happens all the time but not the Comelec.

Has the Comelec ever sent anyone to jail for mis-declaring his SOCE?

You tell me.

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