Barangay Vote-Buying

Location : Siquijor Island, Philippines

Vote-Buying
Political posters with smiling candidates are now seen across town for the forthcoming barangay elections. Since vote-buying has now become institutionalized across the country, there is once again an air of optimism amongst the locals. They eagerly anticipate the P150 cash (P500 in some places) + goodies (rice, flour, etc) that the politicians give them in buying their votes.

Now You See Them, Now You Don't
Election is the only time when these politicians make their presence felt to their constituents. After winning the election, you don't see them again and whatever campaign promise they made (to the extent they actually promised anything), you don't see them too. The locals know this process all too well but they play along with this charade. It's a dance between voters and politicians.

Color-Coding
This practice of color-coding (identifying who voted for whom) is likewise institutionalized. It means if your candidate loses, you become marginalized by the newly seated incumbents. If you work for the local government, you are likely to lose your job.

Meritocracy?
People don't vote for the best man for the job. Meritocracy does not exist here. They vote for whoever gives the most money. It's a tribal society where the largesse is divided in priority sequence by the winner to self, family, realtives, and friends.

To put things in context, Singapore is perhaps the only country that runs on meritocracy - the most competent person gets the job. Even though Singapore has a Chinese dominant majority, that job could go to a Muslim Malay or a Hindu Indian. That is the reason why Singapore now has the 2nd highest GDP on the planet next only to Luxembourg (on a per capita basis according to the IMF, 2023). In stark contrast to the 1950s, Singapore and the Philippines were practically in the same boat - decaying infrastructure, social unrest, housing shortage, poverty, etc. Fast-forward to today, we send out teachers and accountants to be domestic helpers in Singapore.

This is the power of meritocracy and having responsible leaders.

The Unwritten Exchange
The ramification of this vote-buying is profound. Once you sell your vote to a politician, you give him license to do whatever the fuck he wants to do. He can stop garbage collection and pocket the budget for it (like what happens in Lazi), he can destroy good roads to build inferior ones on top of it (this happens all over the Philippines now like a plague), he can start projects and leave them hanging (like the seawall in Lazi), etc.

Can't Complain
And because you sold your vote, you also gave up your right to complain about it. You become complicit in the crime. People complain to everyone but not to the politicians. They know they'd been fucked-up again as expected, but I doubt if they realize that selling their votes is part and parcel of the problem.

The Good Can't Win...Money Talks
I remember having this conversation in 2013 along the Eastern coast of Mindanao (Lanuza? Cortez?). I was talking to the point-man of someone who wants to run as mayor. The conversation went like this:

Point-Man: We are confident of winning this election. The incumbent is so corrupt, everybody hates him. The man I'm working for is decent, hard-working and a good statesman - everyone knows that. We just need to raise P3000 to pay every citizen of this town.

Gigit: Why do you have to buy the people's votes if the incumbent is corrupt, and your candidate is a good man and everybody knows about it? I don't get it.

Point-Man: The incumbent is paying everyone P5000. If we don't pay the voters, they will vote the current mayor - no matter how much they hate him. However, since people want change and they know my candidate is a good man, they will accept P3000 and cast their vote with us. They are willing to take the P2000 loss.

Gigit: (thought bubble): I guess by paying the voters, this good guy will be forced to steal from the public treasury to recoup his election expense. If he's stealing for the people, then of course, he will be stealing for himself. 'Decent' politician? They're all garbage.

Sold !!!

Why?
It's mind-boggling why the situation would come to this. I tried to go 'deep' into the culture and I come up with speculations. Perhaps they're all valid but not really hitting the nail on the head.

1. poor and ignorant - one speculation is that through generations, the public has been systematically kept poor and ignorant. If they are poor, they'll take whatever bone is thrown their way. By being ignorant, they won't know what's actually transpiring. But how do you explain the middle class going along with this? They're not as poor and as uneducated as the downtrodden.
2. resignation - the public knows that whoever wins, they'll be fucked either way. It's a given. Thus, they'll just take the most of whatever they can get during elections. I remember what Lee Kuan Yew said about the Filipinos. He said, "The Filipinos are too soft for their own good." True. Filipinos don't complain. By the time they complain, it means they are already on the brink of killing someone.
3. no love of country - I'm a UP graduate (University of the Philippines). This means it was tax-payers' money that paid for my education. I am indebted to the country for my education. I am supposed to represent the cream of the crop. However, one time in Geneva, someone who headed the United Nations' Committee on Human Rights (who was also a UP graduate and college dean) asked me, "Gigit, tell me. What is love of country?". Embarrassingly, I could not give an answer. I didn't know. I realized that despite being a beneficiary of taxpayer's money, I didn't know shit about love of country. That puzzled me.
   
   When I was tasked to teach a CWTS class in UP for the graduating students, that's when I realized that 'good citizenship' (the essence of CWTS), was taught in developed nations from Day One when they go to school! Here in the Philippines, we only started doing it in 2004 and it was only taught to graduating students who were in their 20s. At this point, it's perhaps too little too late.
   
   The Zeitgeist in the Philippines is, "each to his own". Nobody grows up feeling that he is a part of the nation-building process. They don't feel being a stakeholder in the country's evolution. Thus, when the public sells their vote in exchange for infrastructure money being spirited away, they can care less...as long as they get something for it.

Ending Thoughts
The money given to voters by politicians will come out of the local treasury. It's not a gift but stolen loot. But the public goes along with the charade. I'm left shaking my head. Do I have the answers? No, I don't think so. It's not so simple. It's a deeply connected web that affects parties not visible at the surface. What do I mean? A corrupt politician (and this practically means every politician) is a benefactor to general contractors, his friends, his relatives, his business associates, etc. They all benefit from the largesse. It's practically a mafia. Try to stop the corruption and you feel the brunt of all these stakeholders. There's just too much money involved in politics. As one friend puts it, you can't be the clean guy in politics....you end up dead.

One thing for certain though is that I won't sell my vote.

--- Gigit (TheLoneRider)
YOGA by Gigit | Learn English | Travel like a Nomad | Donation Bank

p.s. Now that election is over, the encumbent, despite not collecting garbage, won. This is because he paid money for the votes. As for the voters, I can only say they deserve the politicians whose money they accepted to get them all fucked all over again. Like I said, it's a dance.

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Siquijor Island Map

Siquijor - Cebu (Liloan) - Cebu City BUS Trip

(as of Jan 2023)

There is only one bus plying this route - Sugbo Urban. Tourist class coach, a/c, comfortable, Sun-Fri (these dates keep changing). P420 for bus, P275 for ferry to Liloan. Larena Port around 5 am, makes a clockwise roundtrip around Siquijor Island - Larena, Enrique Villanueva, Maria, Lazi (stops at Lazi market for breakfast and leaves 6:50 am), San Juan, Siquijor (arrives 8am, P50 from Lazi to Siquijor Poblacion) and catches the 1pm ferry at Larena Port (Sundays at 3 pm) for Liloan, Cebu and resumes its land route. Arrives Cebu City (South Bus Terminal) 10 pm.

Sugbo Urban is the cheapest and most convenient way because it goes around the island (clockwise) along the circumferential road, passing through - Enrique Villanueva, Maria, Lazi, San Juan, Siquijor...and back to Larena where it takes the ferry at 1 pm. This saves you the hassle and high transport cost of a tricycle. Besides, it's a long trip from the other side of the island to be taking by tricycle.

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