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Thursday, March 04, 2004
Valdehuesa: Trapos don't really control the votes
By Manuel E. Valdehuesa jr.
Ponder this
TRADITIONAL politicians (trapos) are generally conceded to be the runaway winners in local elections.
This is because people have the general impression that barangay officials control the votes in the neighborhoods. It is an impression that no one bothers to challenge. It is time to explode this impression.
Barangay officials, especially the undereducated ones, do not control the votes. It is the money they spend on behalf of their patrons and the doleouts they distribute in the neighborhoods that influence the votes.
The more money they spend and the more goods to give away, the more votes they capture. What's critical is the money, not the officials.
The money and the goods come from two sources: official and unofficial. The official source is the barangay government's income, which is in the millions, augmented by pork barrel and patronage from the municipal or city hall.
These are available all year round and perennially abused because the residents don't bother to do their job of ensuring accountability and transparency.
Then there's the money provided by trapo candidates who enlist barangay officials and their minions as their ward leaders and campaign operatives.
One can tell who these are by checking out who put up the streamers or posters and distribute other campaign paraphernalia.
They are also the ones who organize the hakot and motorcades and make noises during rallies. Come election week, they will transmogrify into vote-buyers, sample-ballot handlers and dagdag-bawas (vote padding and shaving) technicians.
The money used to make all this possible is what controls the votes, not the barangay officials per se. Where officials are hostile to a candidate, the handlers are not officials. So it's the money and goods, not the officials.
To check out this statement, simply imagine how many votes barangay officials can bring in without the money and the giveaways.
Are they respectable pillars of the community, influential for their wisdom and integrity, highly credible and respected for their sound ideas on governmental affairs?
If they didn't have command of the resources entrusted to them, what would be their social standing in the community? Would they have been elected without the votes of the patronage-fed sectors in the slums and poor neighborhoods? What sort of jobs, occupations or livelihood would they have if they were not elected? Would they be model and respectable citizens?
It is the money and the giveaways that got them the votes. In some communities during the last barangay elections, the pot money put in by kagawads during the campaign involved as much as P150,000.
To invest that amount of money to get elected to a barangay post gives a clear idea of how lucrative even barangay politics can be. Much more so at higher levels.
Trapos have a keen understanding of the psychology of vote-getting. Central to their strategy is the concept of utang kabubut-on, debt of gratitude.
Give a voter money, goods or services, and he will owe you a debt of gratitude--to be repaid in kind in the form of votes.
A debt of gratitude incurred by the head of family is repaid by the entire family and even by the rest of the clan with their votes.
The barangay and their operatives merely serve as the conduit for the money, goods and services--later as collectors of the payment-in-kind during the elections.
Tax-paying residents should be concerned. They are being fried in their own fat. The taxes they pay are used by the trapos to buy votes with.
Worse, most of the trapo votes are cast by those who pay no taxes. Non-taxpayer votes are used to inundate and subvert the taxpayers's votes.
Non-taxpayers dictate who shall govern and manage the community's resources--resources that will be used against the taxpayers during the next elections.
Money for development is used to manipulate the poor instead of improve their lives and surroundings.
People may say it is too late now because the elections are at hand.
On the contrary, this is the time to be alert and vigilant because this is the season for releasing the money amassed specifically for the last leg of the campaign season.
This is the time to thwart the nefarious conspiracies of the barangay officials in order to please their patrons and bosses.
Concerned citizens must be on high alert and monitor their barangay officials so they won't succeed in perverting the election process yet again.
It is now open season for vote-buying, giveaways and unofficial use of barangay facilities and resources. It is harvest time for the dispensers of patronage at City Hall, municipal hall and capitol.
People shouldn't be too obsessed about the big-time trapos. They've already done their wholesale corruption with pork barrel and patronage.
The action is now with their ward leaders--the vote-collectors, the harvesters of utang kabubut-on and the neighborhood buyers of retail votes.
If you want good governance and decency in government, watch the small-time trapos in your neighborhoods and precinct areas. That's where the action is at this late hour. And they're the ones who are determined to elect the big-time trapos!
(E-mail: valdeman_esq@yahoo.com)
(March 4, 2004 issue)
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