They didn’t carry guns. At times blood flowed but not from .45 pistol shots. There were broken bones, but not enough to kill. Goons made sure terrorized voters could still walk to the precinct and fill the ballot.
But how long ago was that? Ancient history.
There were private armies, to be sure. The few politicians whose families held iron grip on their fiefdoms hired the goons. But mostly to keep balance of terror: you have private army, I have mine, let’s not shoot one another.
Now, propaganda and persuasion replace strong-arm methods. No club swings, no bullet flies. Only pork barrel, with the goodies it can give, rolls.
Younger and better-educated leaders in political clans have a lot to do with it.
Along with high-tech methods learned with a law or business degree, new chiefs view politics as corporate battle in which one beats the rival by skill in use of money and people, not the gun arsenal.
Violence fled with aging, aged, or dead politicos whose names were linked with the goons. Terrorism is used only with other commodities (water, land, or housing) but even that is discredited.
Voters and leaders are wooed with health insurance cards or cash, jobs at City Hall, or genuine campaigning by aspirants who tirelessly promise the moon along with the SRP and what it will bring.
Last Wednesday, near the Comelec office at Capitol, a candidate for mayor of a town far-flung and remote was gunned down. It was surreal, an aberration.
Violence in Cebu politics is a thing of the past. Or is it?
