The three Gs (Latest Sabong News)

The Commission on Elections is reportedly forming a task force composed of the justice department, military, police and a Comelec unit to go after vote buyers. While this initiative is commendable and deserves to succeed, there is skepticism over the Comelec’s capacity (and even sincerity) to carry it out. Elections in this country have always been influenced by the so-called 3Gs: guns, goons and gold. In the upcoming elections, the guns and goons are still there. E-sabong seems to have boosted the capacity of certain politicians to deploy gun-toting goons. But with the country devastated by a once-in-a-century pandemic, the gold is what matters most, for those who want to sway voting in their favor. When the national government, which refuses to give an inch on oil taxes amid the fuel crisis, can afford to give each poor family only P500 in ayuda plus one-month free ride on the MRT-3, getting P500 cash plus a free t-shirt is enough incentive to attend a campaign rally. (In some places, the going rate is reportedly P700.) If there’s a contest of sorts, ostensibly to entertain the crowd during the rally, bigger cash prizes may even be given away. Will paid warm bodies translate into votes? During the 1986 snap presidential election when voters faced the prospect of getting a share of Japanese Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita’s fabled war loot, then Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin memorably advised the needy to accept the money, but vote according to their conscience. * * * Those who pay for warm bodies for rallies will need to sustain the procured loyalty until election day. Those who sell their votes typically prefer cash given directly; the buyers, meanwhile, want proof that they get what they pay for. Automated voting made it difficult to get that proof. Smartphone cameras make it easy, but the Comelec has banned the use of cell phones in a polling booth. Vote buyers will just have to rely on the election results to see if they get what they pay for. They can promise more rewards if they get the procured outcome. Before the cash reaches individual beneficiaries, the money is funneled in bulk through the grassroots political leaders, for distribution. There have been vote buying cases in the past wherein sacks of cash were found inside the “distribution center.” In the digital age, regulators are sounding the alarm about other methods of vote buying. The Anti-Money Laundering Council has alerted commercial banks and financial services institutions about certain financial activities that might indicate digital vote buying. Such movements of funds must be reported by the banks and financing institutions to the AMLC. In the final days of the campaign, resources will also be poured into name recall saturation drives. That’s when walls, lampposts and trees will be inundated with campaign materials, with rivals plastering each other’s posters with their own from one day to the next. We expect a similar flood of campaign materials on multimedia. There’s no escaping those annoying ads these days, whether on your cell phone or computer; there will be no escaping them in the campaign’s homestretch. If they can hijack the emergency alert messaging system of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council for political purposes, they can easily bombard you with their lying praise releases. * * * Obviously, saturation messaging on multimedia as well as vote buying are only for those with large war chests. Those born to wealth, or who married into it, or who inherited fabled treasure have an advantage. Even administration candidates with limited resources complain about this and are pushing for reforms to level the playing field in campaigning. Survey ratings also help. This is one of the effects of all those pre-election surveys: they drive campaign contributions. It’s human nature to place one’s bet on the horse that’s seen to win. Some wealthy potential donors hedge their bets, contributing to the campaign kitties of rival candidates. This sigurista practice was likely reinforced by the come-from-behind landslide victory of Rodrigo Duterte in 2016. The few persons or families who were with him from the start have reaped rich rewards in the past six years. Personal wealth and private contributions also get an enormous boost from government resources. In theory, using public funds and resources for partisan activities is prohibited under election laws. In practice, just look around you. True, it can be tricky to draw a line between a partisan activity and a legitimate distribution of ayuda by the incumbent local government executive, or by the president of the republic – in case he decides to wade directly into the fray and work for his candidates. But suspicion is inevitable if the venue for the ayuda distribution is plastered with the campaign materials of a particular candidate, whose campaign shirts or colors are also worn by those distributing the cash. During the campaign period, all forms of aid distribution should be taken out of the hands of politicians and supervised solely by the Department of Social Welfare and Development. Ideally, the doleouts should be coursed simply through banks and financial institutions. The 4Ps or conditional cash transfer program for the poorest families already has a system in place for this. I don’t know if it’s too late to do this now. The Comelec is mandated to supervise the conduct of elections, so perhaps it can still impose this rule on ayuda distribution. Then again, the Comelec’s mandate and credibility have been progressively eroded, by the Supreme Court and by the poll body’s own compromised officials. Now it’s taking on the seemingly intractable problem of vote buying. Good luck on that.