Who will serve the Bacolenos

UPON arrival from Iloilo, this writer went to join some coffee talkers for some chatting time in a coffee bar. This writer did not know everyone around the group of eight middle aged guys but just knew four of them.

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Coffee agenda talk was politics for the local scene and the never ending road management inability in the city of Bacolod. Asked an insurance man - Who will be the next elected leaders of Bacolod? Are they truly leaders to serve or are they for self-serving interests that is common in this country's political environment? Everyone laughed. No one gave an answer.

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The retired salesman believes that there is no more chance for Bacolod to be developed since he sees traditional politicians as perpetual leaders of the city. It was his belief but another coffee partner insisted that there is a chance if the voters are not carried away selling their votes.

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The low-handicap golfer is still in a quandary as to where these political candidates get their millions and millions to finance their election campaign funds. He said to win a mayoralty seat in an urbanized city, one needs more than a hundred million pesos to have a chance to win but never an assurance to take the powerful seat.

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The retired accountant sipped his coffee and butted in and said that this is where corruption will never have an end because the winning candidates have to recover the big sum of money that they need to dole out to the voters. So who says corruption can be stopped? The Filipino people want to put an end to corruption but the Pinoys are the real corruptors when they sell their votes, insisted the accountant.

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The fate of any city or province depend on the voters and the candidates already know how to sway the voters to their side - just money nothing more, stressed the insurance man. Hoping that this will not be true anymore. All kneel and pray.