Beholden

At the corner of J.P. Rizal and Mercado streets in Calamba, Laguna sits the shrine built around the home of national hero Jose Rizal.

Adjacent to the shrine is St. John the Baptist Church, where Rizal was baptized. Across the street from the church main entrance is a park with a giant traditional earthenware cooking pot with a map of Laguna.

And across the pot – the other side of J.P. Rizal corner Mercado – is Aling Inday’s Lugawan. “Masarap na, mura pa,” according to the eatery signage, which declares it was provided “compliments of Hon. Edison M. Natividad, city councilor.” Of course the signage bears the councilor’s image.

The corner lugawan is a prime spot for political ads. Rizal’s ancestral home, painted a light shade of green, was packed last Saturday, mostly with grade school kids on a field trip with their teachers, but there were also a lot of adult visitors. In the afternoon heat there was a long line for dirty ice cream (mango and cheese flavors) outside the compound.

Does that restaurant signage violate election campaign laws? Yesterday the Commission on Elections said the local campaign period had not yet started and there’s no such thing as premature campaigning.

Will “Oplan Baklas” also be implemented in Calamba? This election season’s effort to rid Metro Manila of illegally posted campaign materials was off to a good start last week. I hope it won’t be overwhelmed, as in the past, and surrender.

Apart from campaign posters, streamers and tarpaulins, Oplan Baklas should also set its sights on tents and tarp roof covers bearing the names of politicians, who lend the items to constituents for “KBL” or kasal, binyag, libing (weddings, baptisms and funerals).

Tarpaulin roofs bearing the names of barangay captains are considered a license to obstruct busy roads even in Metro Manila, with wakes spilling over into the streets. Will such tarps be banned by the Commission on Elections? And can the Comelec enforce the ban?

The public can never be sure about the ownership of such tarps. They are most likely procured with local government money, but when it comes to self-promotion, the typical Pinoy politician blurs the line between private and public resources. Politicians’ names and faces are pasted not only on billboards marking tax-funded projects, but also on a wide variety of items including state-owned giveaway health kits, monobloc chairs and heavy machinery.

Thus even the backhoe that hurriedly buried 58 people together with their crumpled vehicles in November 2009 in Maguindanao bore the name of the late Andal Ampatuan Sr., at the time the provincial governor.

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Then there are the ambulances. At the start of his term, President Aquino said politicians’ names must be erased from government ambulances. This has not happened.

These days, epal politicians have even found ways to make their credit-grabbing markers permanent. Their names are no longer simply painted on streamers or billboards but carved in concrete or metal into the entrances of school or office buildings.

Such is the “Sen. Ralph G. Recto Type School Building” that I saw in Malvar, Batangas when I went to Lipa. I can see this sparking a revolutionary trend among our epal politicians. A “Recto-type road,” a “Recto-type public toilet” – the shameless possibilities are endless.

Compared with this, Calamba Councilor Edison Natividad’s lugawan signage for Aling Inday is penny ante.

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Politicians couldn’t even keep their hands off the conditional cash transfer. The World Bank Group, which has a new country director, may want to reconsider its support for the CCT as it becomes just another instrument of patronage politics in the Philippines.

It wasn’t supposed to be so. The CCT, inspired by the success of similar programs in countries such as Brazil, was launched here during the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The World Bank provided hefty funding support plus assistance in vetting the beneficiaries.

The World Bank country director at the time, Bert Hofman, told me that the idea was to keep politics out of a worthy project that aimed to ease poverty, keep kids in school and compel women to have regular health care.

Apart from direct World Bank involvement in selecting the beneficiaries, the cash was withdrawn through bank ATMs rather than received from politicians.

Hofman told me that if politics would be injected into the program, the World Bank would withdraw its support. And for a while the WB got what it wanted. The Department of Social Welfare and Development tried to prevent politicians from taking credit for CCT activities.

With billions allocated for the program, however, it was just a matter of time before politicians found a way to influence if not the direct cash transfer, then at least the selection process. Barangay officials, who are under the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), now have a strong say in vetting CCT beneficiaries. In recent years, these village chiefs have cut off from the program beneficiaries who met the requirements but openly supported the opposition.

Politicians have also been attending CCT events in an obvious attempt to claim personal credit for the program. The CCT is not supposed to be a permanent thing, But daang sarado (and to be fair, several of the political blocs) now openly use the prospect of CCT expansion as a campaign platform.

Hofman, during his stint in Manila, was also elated over the growth of business process outsourcing. He said BPOs provided jobs even outside urban centers and made beneficiaries less beholden to political patrons for their needs.

Keeping everyone beholden, however, is indispensable in Philippine politics. This is why the pork barrel and Disbursement Acceleration Program were developed; Malacañang needed tools to obtain congressional support. And this is why, with the abolition of the pork and DAP by the Supreme Court, the DILG has strengthened its control over the purse strings of local government units.

People understand the dynamics involved. Some resent being sucked into a system of patronage. Others don’t mind; still others enthusiastically embrace the system, believing they gain personally from it.

Perhaps Aling Inday is a genuine supporter of Councilor Natividad. So if anyone tears down her lugawan signage, Aling Inday might hit the Oplan Baklas team with her goto cooking pot.