Volunteer campaigners repel traditional vote-buyers

Huge sums will change hands these next few days. As campaigning ends, national candidates will deliver bags of cash to local counterparts. The latter’s task is retail cheating. A P1,000-bill or two will be given to the voter with instuctions on which names to shade in the ballot. Voters will be fed and bused to polling precincts. The uncooperative will be paid off too to stay home on Election Day, rather than vote for the opponents. Dirty money can also be sent online.

Politicos devise ways to ensure that bribed voters comply. The old “lansadera” scheme in handwritten ballots can be applied in voter receipts under the automated election system. The purpose of that receipt (Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail) is for the voter to ascertain if the machine read his choices right. But in “lansadera” of, say, a hundred bribees, the first in line drops a fake receipt in the box on his way out of the precinct, pocketing the genuine one. This is shown to the paymaster as proof of compliance, and is then secretly marked and passed on to the next in line. That second paid voter will drop that marked genuine receipt in the box and hand over his new one to the paymaster. And so on till everybody has cast the command votes.

Another ploy is cruder. A corrupted poll watcher is trained to quickly spot which candidate the voter chose. If it’s the opponent, the watcher secretly will smudge or tear the ballot he is assisting the voter to feed to the machine. That ballot thus spoiled, the voter is given one spare to try again. Within the first few hours, the precinct can run out of spare ballots.

The Comelec will need to train precinct inspector-teachers to tell real voter receipts from counterfeits. And to closely monitor goings-on around the vote counting machines. The old modus of photographing the ballot with a camera-pen is difficult to pull off. Still, precinct officers must always be a step ahead of malicious politicos.

Some voters’ presidential choice is based on the father’s imagined golden legacy. Others even believe their candidate, if victorious, will hand out wealth. Hardships from pandemic lockdowns and social media disinformation must have magnified the allure of fool’s gold.

Old habits die hard. For local candidates, voters look for what they personally can gain. Hence the Three M’s: Matulungin (helpful), Malalapitan (approachable), Mapagbigay (generous).

In the city where I live, a mayoral aspirant abets those M’s. While falsely accusing the re-electionist incumbent of graft, he promises free medicines, free market stalls, free rides, free this, free that – picturing citizens as freeloaders. Forgotten is how his and 15 other rock quarries in the Marikina mountain watershed caused flash floods in November 2020. Lives were lost; homes and shops submerged; cars, furniture, appliances and personal records buried in mud in five cities. Overlooked as well is that one of his congressional bets and financiers had swindled the government of P12.5 billion in pricey pandemic supplies through a Chinese state agent in 2020-2021.

The Good Book teaches three other M’s in choosing leaders. Jethro counseled son-in-law Moses about “men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain.” May takot sa Diyos, Mapagtitiwalaan, Matuwid.

Being volunteer-powered, Leni Robredo’s campaign frees her from big spending and indebtedness to donors. People- and sector-centered issues are brought to the fore. Voters own the platform. It is a glimpse of a Leni administration: transparent, accountable, inclusive.

Leni’s candidacy is the tipping point in Philippine politics. It renews faith in government. Young advocates and old activists, mega-wokes and undecideds, even formerly apolitical folk, people of different social classes feel one in objective.

Volunteers intend to defeat organized money with organized people. A cultural revolution has sparked. National Artists, showbiz stars and local untapped talents freely join. Masterful storytelling; music and dance by doctors, lawyers, engineers; and reinterpretation of local customs highlight provincial rallies.

Leni’s volunteers reject vertical hierarchical politics, emboldening ordinary people to overpower traditional dynastic pols.

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