I was starting to enjoy the early part of my retirement in 2022 when I received a call from my cousin, a vice mayor in one of the towns in Siquijor, inviting me to join their slate as Board Member representing our District in the last elections.
I was initially ambivalent to the idea because while I still wanted to serve, I was hesitant because as I told my cousin, the practices of partisan politics in our island are not for those who play by the rules.
Despite my cousin’s assurances that we would not go into direct vote buying as part of “new politics,” I declined, saying I do not have money to buy votes, and if ever I would run, I would like to win mainly because of my capability, track record of excellent appointive public service.
When I went home for our town fiesta immediately after the May 2022 elections, I told my cousin that had I accepted the offer “pareho ta pildero unta karon, gaw”.
Most of my cousin’s co-candidates lost except for two previous mayors (sons of a former congressman) who were elected as tail-enders among the eight municipal councilors, while another successful candidate was elected Board Member.
I also met the winning mayor who is my personal friend. He intimated to me: “This kind of politics is not for your kind.”
A similar call came again the other week when politicians were busy finalizing their slate to beat the Oct. 8 deadline for filing of candidacy for the May 2025 elections. This time I was invited to join as councilor in our town in Siquijor.
Starting from the inception of this republic, local elites, oligarchs, and political dynasties created hard times, they’re always at the scene of the crime. Most of the silent gens, boomers, Gen-X and even millennials are still voting this way every election time. It seems that we are all letting this country set back into dark ages for our children and the youth.
Nowadays, social media is filled with fears of a Philippines where there’s rampant environmental degradation, political impunity, erosion of transparency, wasted tax money on “unnecessary projects,” decline of due process/rule of law and accountability, religion and politics intertwined, irrational and reactionary populism that set us back to paternalistic eras, our civil rights, free speech and liberties being attacked, our nationalism, patriotism and democracy being hijacked /held at gunpoint by extremist, political dynasties, demagogues and oligarchs.
Many of us dream to vote for our wallets, for the environment, for our dignity, the stability of our economy and for sustaining our sovereignty for the next generation. Election of our political leaders who administer our government should have been the opportunity to make our national dreams come true.
Ideally, elections are integral to democratic governance. Through the mechanism of elections politicians are held accountable for their actions and are compelled to introduce policies that are reflective of and responsive to public opinion. These do not, however, prevent the distortion of the will of the electorate in a “flawed democracy.”
Clientelism, corruption, nepotism, fraud and violence, among others, continue to reinforce the elitist nature of Philippine electoral politics. These are nothing new.
During the first Philippine election, one of the requirements for the voters was individuals who speak, read and write English/Spanish, own real property worth at least P500, or have held local Philippine government positions prior to the occupation of the country in 1898.
This provision effectively restricted participation in the early electoral exercise to the educated and landowning members of the traditional elite. As a result, factional rivalries and personality issues among the local influential families marked these elections.
During the colonization period, Philippine party politics was characterized by clientelist interactions between the Filipino elite politicians and their American colonial patrons.
Thus, electoral campaigns were neither venues for the discussion of social issues nor mass appeals for voters, but negotiations between national political personalities and the provincial landowning elites.
It was reported that the initial development and growth of electoral politics and party politics in the Philippines remained a lasting legacy of American colonialism.
However, the fusion of wealth and power brought about by political connections and patronage, instead of productivity, has undermined the post-colonial state’s capacity to realize broad national goals for social and economic development.
Thus, elections as the defining feature of democracy were not always competitive because of the schemes of oligarchic interests to manipulate and control electoral outcomes such as control of the media, oligarchic parties and personalized campaigning, and electoral fraud.
Many changes had been introduced since the 1935 and 1987 constitutions but still the old clientelistic network that distributed patronage through local governments remained alive.
Political analyst Conrado de Quiros, said that “Philippine elections have historically served to legitimize the government and perpetuate elite rule.” He further said that, “elections were the “equilibrating” mechanism, although their ability to equilibrate society under the combined weight of mass restiveness and competing claims to power by various power blocs would diminish in time. Consequently, the quality of democratic representation has suffered from this anomaly.”
What exists now is a network of mutual aid relationships between pairs of individuals that de Quiros called ‘dyadic ties’. The dyadic ties present in Philippine politics are vertical and unequal, binding prosperous patrons who dispense material goods and services to dependent clients who recompense with their support and loyalty. Kinship system is a potent instrument of patronage politics continued to influence voters and this is coupled with nepotism and other distorted practices of Filipino values such as strong family ties, utang na loob, kapatiran and pakikisama. Democratic ideals in the selection of true leaders continued to decline also with the emergence of machine politics.
My former boss lamented on social media: “Every filing deadline for the COC brings out the worst out of our electoral system. Criminals, thieves, human traffickers, murderers, fugitives, drug lords, sexual predators, and political has-beens bring their case to the voters, in effect saying: ‘We are the worst of the worst, but you can take it, can’t you? We are your worst nightmare, but when you wake up, you will still love us, won’t you? We know we don’t deserve your vote, but hey, you’re dumb enough to do it every time! So shut up about it and just go with the flow. We will steal public funds, and all we need to do is display shameless arrogance, and all will be forgotten. You can let your outrage be known on social media, but there’s not much you can do to stop us. We are the ruling criminal class, and you are our abject ruled.”
He added: “We are cursed as a nation for voting into office leaders whose crimes against the people are largely and quickly forgotten and become public figures, eating snacks while attending Senate sessions and wasting space without contributing anything to the proceedings, confident about the fragility of our reality, the brittleness of our sense of shame, and the shortness of our collective memory.”
Track record and educational attainment are not given much value in our elections. Integrity is not a big thing to the voters.
A number of voters who had suffered long enough because of economic underdevelopment, poor social services, graft and corruption, injustice and poverty may have been conditioned to vote for those madaling lapitan, mapagbigay, mukhang mabait, sikat, kahit kurakot basta matulungin, instead of looking for candidates who know and can make good governance a reality.
Aside from having no money to buy votes, I declined the second offer this month because I do not also have what the voters are looking for. I do have what the voters do not give much value. I would just be a sure loser.
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Author’s email: pligutom@yahoo.com
