Tuesday, February 06, 2007 Cabaero: Narcopolitics as campaign fodder By Nini B. Cabaero Beyond 30
THE issue of funding for an election campaign has always been a sensitive matter. Funding could spell victory or defeat of a candidate and could dictate on the interests that would hold the victor once placed into office.
Who is funding a campaign then becomes a question posed by rivals at each other in an attempt to mock a candidate’s character and to link a competitor to dirty money and bad people.
This is the tenor of the word war now going on between Cebu City Rep. Antonio Cuenco and probable south district congressional candidate Jonathan Guardo.
Guardo has filed a graft complaint against Cuenco for the questioned purchase of passenger-type vehicles for Cebu City barangays. Cuenco retorted with a claim that “narcopolitics has entered the south district” and at least three drug lords are reportedly supporting Guardo’s campaign.
The graft complaint is now with the proper body, the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas. The narcopolitics tag is still in the air. The general definition of “narcopolitics” is the struggle by drug syndicates to gain state power using proceeds from illegal drug activities to fund elections and extend their tentacles not only to law enforcement branches but to the judiciary, legislature and the media, as well.
Once they have that power, they can proceed with their illegal operations unafraid of anyone stopping them.
Warnings have been made in past elections about narcopolitics entering the picture and of illegal drug trade money funding poll ambitions. Candidates accused rivals of being chummy with known drug traders; institutions were told to watch out for people with selfish business interests trying to enter their doors. Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal in past elections joined the fight against narcopolitics.
But the struggle to keep drug money out of government cannot be won within a word war between election rivals.
The charge of narcopolitics is a convenient material for competitors in a political exercise. It is an issue that stems from the sensitive matter over campaign funding; and the drug problem is a concern that could get popular support.
Narcopolitics as an issue, however, cannot be addressed as mere campaign fodder among political rivals. It should be a concern for the electorate; an area where voters can demand that their candidates openly reject illegal drugs money.
Those who will suffer from the effects of narcopolitics would not be those who will get elected but the people who will continue to bear a corrupt government and system.
