Days after I picked on our sham election system, Commission on Elections Chief George Erwin Garcia called on voters “to look at poll bets’ stand on issues, not their personalities.” This is pure posturing, a helpless caretaker’s attempt to dab a pleasant scent on the foul-smelling rot of our election system. Mr. Garcia surely knows it will take more than verbal prodding to make voters consider issues. He is no dummy and should also know why a significant number of them can’t or won’t.
One reason is existential. Very simply, “you cannot preach to a hungry stomach” or, as both oppressors and oppressed would put it, “you cannot eat principles.” Most of our voters live a hand-to-mouth existence. Issues do not stand a chance of being looked at from behind a few thousand pesos that candidates dangle before voters. “What the heck?” the poor would say and splurge away.
Another is cultural. The typical Filipino is not self-directed. She/he needs structures to direct her/him towards whatever is the proper thing to do. Like, why do we have steel railings guarding sidewalks on busy streets? The reason is simple. You do not keep Filipinos from jaywalking with just a “No Jaywalking” sign. You have to restrain them with a structure. Similarly, Filipino drivers will counter-flow at will if there is no center island. And you cannot keep Filipinos from littering by just putting up “No Littering” signs.
If we want voters to vote on issues not on personalities, we need to solve both the existential and the cultural problems of the electorate. A two-pronged approach is needed.
First and foremost is a serious program to liberate our millions of poor voters from the clutches of poverty and ignorance. Only if their stomachs are full and their mental faculties fully functional (their brains undamaged by hunger and lack of education) will they be inclined to listen to platitudes. Unless we create a big enough educated middle class that can resist the money of politicians, poor voters (and they are the majority) will always succumb to the allure of money and there is just no way anybody can blame them for it.
(The war against poverty is a protracted one. It will be more protracted in our case since we have not even started. Our leaders refuse to improve the economic condition of voters. They want their money, not their stand on issues, to determine voters’ choices.)
Second is the elimination of individual spending by candidates. As exemplified by progressive Western nations, government must fund elections in their entirety. Like, among others, candidates are given equal amount of media coverage and only joint rallies are allowed. But again to be a candidate one has to be a member of a party and chosen to run by the party’s convention.
In the coming May elections, Filipinos will not even be going for the lesser evil. Prices are up and voters will be going for candidates that fork over the most cash. It’s a crying shame, but this nation is going to the dogs with its utterly farcical elections.