Who pays for democracy?

LOS ANGELES — It is as if I never left home. It seems we really followed the American model too closely. A burning issue here, as it is back home, with regard this year’s presidential elections is campaign finance. There is also this feeling the election, and therefore, access to the presidency is being bought by vested interests.

President Obama, in his last State of the Union address said: “we have to reduce the influence of money on our politics, so that a handful of families and hidden interests can’t bankroll our elections...” He called for changes in the political process, not just who gets elected but how they get elected. He could have been talking about what ails us too.

Republican presidential hopefuls, with the exception of Donald Trump, have been making presentations before traditional big money contributors. The Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton is known to be close to the big Wall Street financiers.

Trump has boasted he doesn’t need the money of special interest groups because he has enough of his own to finance his campaign. He is also benefitting tremendously from free media attention arising from his outrageous statements and behavior. He is, of course, his own vested interest, given the nature of his business interests.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Democratic challenger to Mrs Clinton, has run a strongly anti-establishment campaign. He proudly points out that his campaign is grassroots funded with some two million contributions in small amounts to date. That’s about a million more than President Obama had at this stage of his first campaign.

In Manila, the Comelec has confessed it is unable to regulate the expenditures of candidates before the official start of the campaign. From January to November 2015, political ad spending is already estimated at P1.7-to P2.5-billion and that does not include money given to political leaders, aircraft chartering costs and other campaign headquarters expenses.

It is doubtful candidates give a truthful account of how much money they receive from their fat cat contributors, who of course, will collect in terms of regulatory and other favors once the candidate is elected. In the US, as it is in our country, the way we conduct our elections guarantees continuing control of government by the vested interests who effectively buy our next leaders.

The high cost of running a national campaign has made a mockery of the constitutional right of any qualified citizen to run for office. It also makes the mass media a strong kingmaker. Elections are personality based and the discussion of issues superficial. A very qualified but unknown candidate, like Gov Joey Salceda, has no chance in a national contest.

Maybe a publicly funded campaign will level the playing field. They have that option here in the US, but even Obama opted out of that because he could raise more money through his tech-based fund raising system.

I am starting to think that maybe a shift in our system of government to parliamentary may improve things somewhat. I used to think the parliament will just be a reiteration of the current lower house whose quality of members leave much to be desired. It probably will be, but with a smaller constituency, election expenses will be more reasonable and outstanding local leaders like Salceda can shine and be prime minister.

Indeed, P-Noy wouldn’t have had the chance to be prime minister, judging from his lackluster record as congressman and senator. Frank Drilon, the one who has had the most preparation for the top job (was executive secretary, Labor and Justice secretary and Senate president) could have been prime minister. I know there are those who dislike him, but seeing what he has done in Iloilo makes me think he could do the same for the country.

Two of the strongest presidential contenders, Vice President Jojo Binay and Mayor Rody Duterte were local officials. Probably another illustration why it is said that all politics is local. They are closest to the people and know their needs better than the technocrats in politics who have no sense of urgency.

There are other things wrong with our system of campaign finance. It is an effective way of laundering money from criminal syndicates or from corrupt practices. Many political candidates who lost elections cry all the way to the bank and soon after move to top tier neighborhoods. Left over campaign funds are theirs to keep, it seems, tax free. It is easy to speculate that running for the funds has become part of our electoral process.

One thing is clear from what can be seen in the way we and the Americans finance electoral campaigns — the results can be far from democratic. Even in the case of Obama who pioneered technology-based grassroots fundraising, when push came to shove the big guys in Wall Street got their way because he took campaign funds from them too. That’s why taxpayers paid for the criminal acts of bankers as “too big to fail” banks were bailed out and no banker went to jail for causing the 2008 financial meltdown.

Back home our inequitable tax system, opaque regulatory mechanisms that favor utilities and, of course, the continuing failure of agrarian reform can all be traced to the vested interests who bought our elections even before we cast our votes. Now our Comelec and their suspect PCOS machines can be expected to act in support of the prevailing system.

Here in the US, it would be nice to see a Bernie Sanders battling it out with Donald Trump instead of the usual establishment candidates vetted by the Koch brothers and other fat cat contributors. A Binay vs Duterte will probably send shivers down the spines of the elite kingmakers. But knowing them, they are probably buying both candidates even now to keep their bases covered.

A shift to parliamentary isn’t a cure all, but we need change...we need to try something new because the current one just isn’t working for democracy’s sake. Just three months before our election and no one excites me or any of my well meaning friends among the candidates. None of the above cannot be a good sign of our democracy’s health.

The only test of determining who is worthy of our votes can only be done by following the trail of contributors... following their money trail to the ballot box to see who will really run our country.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco