Vote buying melded with disinformation

Text blasts regularly smear a re-electionist mayor in Metro Manila. Slyly worded, the messages impute crookedness. E.g.: “Should Mayor (name) be indicted for plunder in the P426-million overpriced ‘ayuda?’ Text back, yes or no.” That blast is easily traceable to a political rival. The latter, notorious for graft, had earlier baselessly “exposed” the “crime” in his Facebook page. His blasts echo his false accusation. Very Hitlerian: the bigger the lie, often repeated, the more believable.

The modus doesn’t stop there. Gullible “yes” repliers are then listed in a database. They are befriended, invited to campaign rallies and given cash. Hooked, they recruit other attendees. They are promised food, transportation and more cash on Election Day.

Text blasting for disinformation is not new. Gotcha warned against it many elections ago. The Israel-invented gadget cost about P10 million then. The cheater merely had to load the battery-operated machine in a van, stop by a cell site and send out fake news. Most potent then was on Election Eve. Text blasts would state that the rival had suffered a stroke or heart attack and was thus withdrawing from the race. With no time to correct the fakery, the victim’s supporters would be disheartened and thrown in disarray.

The gadgets have since become smaller, cheaper and easier to smuggle. Government efforts to limit and license their use are futile. In off-election years, those are rented out for sales promos of mini-malls to attract passing commuters and pedestrians. Still the danger of misuse lurks, like to alarm the populace about catastrophes and attribute it to disaster managers.

The clear and present danger is that malicious text blasting is now combined with new-tech vote buying. Payoffs to the harvested repliers can be made online – direct to bank accounts or via mobile wallets. That makes tougher the Comelec’s drive against vote buying.

The poll agency has formed a task force to investigate vote buying motu proprio. No need to wait for complainants, it announced, while warning that both giver and receiver face prosecution. Nothing has been done so far about widely publicized and clearly videoed cash handouts by officials in Cavite, Quezon, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac and Zamboanga. What more with digital payolas?

The five incidents occurred just before or right after rallies there of a presidential candidate and VP running mate. Both advocate acquiescence to China. They endorse the malicious text blaster in Metro Manila, along with a congressional ticket-mate. That mayor wannabe once illegally granted gold mining rights to a China state firm. The congressional bet’s Chinese spouse, a China state agent’s partner, recently made a killing from pricey pandemic supplies. Like elsewhere, Communist China funds and propagandizes for its Manchurian Candidates.

That presidential aspirant too has melded falsity with vote buying. Years ago, his cyber warriors spread a tale that the candidate’s family is loaded with gold. Purportedly, he will give it away when elected. Through the years he has set up or bought out 10,000 nano-influencers online. Each influencer has about ten groups of a hundred followers each, totalling 1,000. The followers, 10 million in all, have been convinced they will be the first recipients of P100,000-P500,000 each, or a gold bar. Any jobless, hopeless voter will bite that, hook, line and sinker. For a decade now public high schools have been graduating students poor in Math, Science, History and Reading Comprehension, thus no critical thinking.

Bank ATM cards are distributed to the followers, each supposedly with P100 deposit. They may check but not withdraw, lest they forfeit the card for containing less than the minimum required amount. The bonanza allegedly will come on presidential inaugural day. It does not matter to the followers that their candidate recently denied on TV knowledge of any gold. They believe he had to do that because America will steal the gold from him. Under the Omnibus Election Code, mere promise of payment is already vote buying.

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The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe, for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood he was one of them. – Turkish proverb