P20 and paracetamol

On Saturday morning I was roused from sleep by loud music and announcements blaring from loudspeakers. A stream of vehicles went around the neighborhood, with barangay and youth council candidates making their final pitches for votes on the last day of the campaign.

You can’t really say much from a moving vehicle, so the announcements were mainly for name recall: candidates’ names and parties were announced, followed by loud music with a lively beat.

As in other electoral exercises, campaign materials covered every inch of designated common poster areas.

In the evening I went to a salon where the women who gave me a foot spa and manicure told me they wished they could go to their provinces during the election break. Not because they wanted badly to express their support for any particular candidate, but because they said they could earn a lot of extra income from those conducting house-to-house campaigns.

All she has to do, the foot spa woman from Mindanao told me, is sit in front of their house and manna would fall from heaven. In previous local elections, she said, candidates for mayor gave each voter from P1,000 to P1,500, and even higher if the money was intended for a large household.

For barangay elections, those running for captain usually gave P500; for kagawad or councilman, from P100 to P200. In previous elections, she said, some cash-strapped candidates gave away P20 together with a sheet of paracetamol.

People of course prefer the larger amounts, but she said they appreciate the thought that goes into the paracetamol. They also accept “gifts” of rice, usually about two kilos per household, and food packs.

The manicurist from Samar had a similar story, with the same amounts involved. She also wished she could go home and vote today.

They said they have received no such “gifts” in Metro Manila. I told them this was because they spent the campaign week at the spa, which is in a commercial area where most of the people are non-residents.

I was told by several residents in the area who are registered as voters in the provinces that some candidates had offered to give them P500 if they would change their area of registration so they could vote for the candidates.

Now you have an idea of why informal settlements proliferate, when barangay officials are tasked by law to prevent squatting. Those shantytowns are vote-rich enclaves.

Other residents told me that candidates in their hometowns in southern Luzon were offering to shoulder their two-way bus fares if they would return for a day or two just to vote. The fare is from P1,000 to P1,200 per person.

This is just the barangay election. How much do candidates spend to seek higher office?

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The barangay is the smallest unit of government, but there are many people who don’t know who their village officials are. I know a number of people who aren’t voting today since they don’t know any of the candidates. Or else they are turned off by the fact that their barangay officials are simply running for reelection or fielding spouses or children as replacement.

Interest among the youth for the Sangguniang Kabataan seems to be even weaker, if we are to go by the dearth of candidates. The dynasty ban imposed for the first time on SK hopefuls eliminated possibly two-thirds of those who had planned to run.

But the spa personnel and other persons who are registered in the provinces told me that the situation is different outside the big cities. In small towns, they told me, barangay elections are a big deal and the seats are hotly contested. And the candidates are ready to spend for their campaigns.

Naturally, the expenses are bigger during the races for governor and mayor. In one such local election, the foot spa woman had been recruited as a poll watcher by a candidate for mayor of her hometown, a mid-sized municipality near Butuan. She said she was paid P1,500 in cash for a day’s poll watching and was provided with three meals, from breakfast to dinner. There were many of them, she said, and they were at the polling precincts from around 6 a.m. until 7 p.m.

That was just on election day. Candidates even for barangay positions have to spend for posters and streamers, and maintain a campaign team. They need funds for food, transportation and other items.

Once they win, they must keep their constituents happy, not necessarily by providing efficient service but by attending to personal needs. As the spa workers told me, they like local officials who can be relied on during personal emergencies, when constituents need money for hospital fees, for miscellaneous school expenses, and the usual “KBL” – kasal, binyag, libing, or weddings, baptisms and funerals.

In turn the official earns not only the beneficiaries’ goodwill but also name recall, by lending items such as karaoke machines, tents and tarpaulin roofs bearing their names to ensure that people would know who helped finance the KBL.

I know someone who’s voting today, even if she doesn’t know any of the barangay candidates, just to pick whoever is running against the incumbent captain. The voter is sick of seeing the captain’s name on the tarpaulin roofs that jut out into the narrow streets when parties and wakes are held in a low-income neighborhood – and they are held often, because the gatherings also provide opportunities for holding numbers games that are normally prohibited such as sakla.

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So where do barangay officials get the money to buy votes and keep their constituents happy if they win?

They are supposed to be non-partisan, but in reality, many serve as grassroots political leaders of congressmen, governors, mayors or vice mayors, who contribute to the barangay candidates’ campaign kitties.

Some candidates are legitimately wealthy. Others collect rent from squatters. Still others are engaged in jueteng, sakla and other illegal gaming operations. Thousands are in President Duterte’s narco list, and as he has said, he can’t kill them all.

As recent news reports have shown, some candidates are killing each other. This makes you wonder what’s so great about a job with modest pay and a three-year term that would drive people to commit murder to eliminate rivals.

This is truly Philippine politics at the grassroots – complete with all the rot.