Friday, September 26, 2008 Valdehuesa: The game-of-trapos: No longer for adults only By Manuel Valdehuesa Street talk
IT’S been a year and a half since the elections for congressional-municipal-provincial officials, and almost a year after the one for barangays. Egregious violations marred both and money flowed as never before.
Before, the money came from the top, from the big political bosses. This time, like the waters of Nasuli in Bukidnon, money sprang from the bottom as well, from the grassroots. Money flowed from candidates running for barangay positions: aspirants for chairman, for kagawad, for Sangguniang Kabataan.
The barangay elections were the worst ever. It showed that it’s no longer just adults who bastardize elections. The SK candidates and their campaigners demonstrated that they too can be rabid corruptors and manipulators of the democratic process. They showed how well they learned the crafty art of electioneering, hakot and vote-buying from the adults.
Poor Jose Rizal: his hope for our fatherland has been contaminated by corruption and the worst of traditional politics. Before last year, a trapo, or traditional politico, meant an ambitious adult with corrupt values. Not anymore.
The horror of it all was the ease with which the young trapos got away with their shenanigans -- ferociously outbidding and outspending each other, deriving perverse pleasure in outwitting the Comelec, violating election laws. And where were their families and elders? They provided the funds, then let them loose to play the Game-of-Trapos on the plains of democracy.
Today the election winners enjoy the spoils of victory, spending their share of hundreds of thousands from their barangay’s internal revenue allotment, while the losers are no doubt scheming how to best them next time around. Next time is just a year and half away. Think what mischief this gaming generation may cook up for next time as it hones its cheating and hustling skills.
This week, some unelected youth are sitting as Boy or Girl Mayor and Councilors at City Hall, courtesy of the Rotary Club. One wonders what sort of orientation they underwent, what sort of conditioning they’re getting as they simulate the duties of the adult officials. Will they simply ape the adults? Or, worse, will they be recruited for the mortal battles anticipated for the 2010 elections?
What’s worrisome about what’s going on now -- in this period between elections -- is what’s not going on. The advocates of political education and voter-registration come alive only when elections are at hand. Only then will they make press releases and mobilize. And of course it will be too late and too little. Last-minute initiatives, as even the Namfrel has learned, do little or no good. It’s like cramming for an exam: what little is learned, if any, is soon forgotten.
But such is the Filipino way of democracy. Unlike the trapos, who are up to their tricks year-round, election period or not, we cram just before an electoral exercise, simply reacting to electoral violations, never anticipating or providing for the next one. And so democracy and the democratic process never becomes our way-of-life.
Unless we start exorcising the ghost of electoral abuses now, as sure as the sun rises in the morning, the same obscene spectacles we saw last year will rain on us all over again come 2010 and elections beyond. How then shall our civilization advance, our politics mature? Ask Henry Abrillo, Titot Neri, Titot Seriña or Bobby Factura!
A former UN executive and vice chair of the local government academy, Manny heads the Gising Barangay Movement and writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Email: valdeman_esq@yahoo.com
