Mandate from mudslinging, money and machinery

By the time this piece gets published, voting would have been under way. It may even well be the case that the counting has begun in some places, while in others, the counting has been completed long before the precincts opened. 

If there is anything that the Philippines is far advanced in this digital age of automatic vote-counting machines, it is in the unbelievable efficiency by which we count votes. It’s a crusted old truism. Unfortunately, it is not a joke. We’ve achieved the technology to count votes long before ballots have been cast.

While we likewise achieved the notoriety that comes with it long ago, in this electoral season we’ve achieved another hallmark, again establishing our politics as among the lowest, the most divisive and the dirtiest ever. Mostly resulting from the desperation of one candidate who simply cannot convince the greater electorate of his merits, however real or contrived those might be, employing millions, both his and our taxes, his campaign has turned choices on its head and created issues that simply pit him against others, regardless of their impact on public welfare.

The control of the media and the employment of scum piled by the sleaziest has characterized this last campaign and accounts for the mandate that we may be seeing should popular will continue to succumb to malodorous manipulation.

The underlying assumption founding such tact to prosecute a campaign is that the Filipino voter is stupid. Allow us to analyze that premise. Let’s dissect the prospect of a mandate from the mudslinging, money and machinery employed.

The first volley from the long losing candidate’s arsenal is mudslinging. That the Filipino easily responds to publicity stunts and demolition jobs, however hollow of statutory evidence, to establish guilt in a proper court is evident in this campaign. It worked once before against then presidential candidate Manuel B. Villar Jr. and the controversial double congressional allocations for roads allegedly constructed to increase property values where his real-estate development firm benefits.

The same mudslinging campaign worked against a very capable candidate simply because he was endorsed by the wrong sponsor. Gilbert Teodoro would have made an excellent president and one far more competent than the President upon whom contrived qualities were conjured up and created.

Mudslinging also has precedents where the same demolition tact was applied against Villar’s then-vice presidential candidate, Loren Legarda, where the mudslinging was so focused on her that it avoided all others who would eventually win the derby.

The next was the application of money from the state coffers against the administration’s stronger competition. That the Filipino can be bought or at least be influenced by money in whatever form this comes is the reality. When money is thrown at the electorate from doles and cash transfers, to monetized promises of fiscal empowerment, the deeply disturbing reality many continue to deny is that the strategy works. Money buys votes and the candidate with access to the state coffers and is a darling of business clubs wields the biggest stick.

There is overwhelming evidence of this form of electoral cheating in this last campaign more than in any previous exercises. Note how government doles were spread along campaign trails of one candidate even as his wife was employed to distribute state-funded checks.

Finally, in this campaign more than others, electoral cogs churned the loudest and fastest. Party machinery provided the ground-working operators, the organizers, the poster-pasting brigades and the vehicles used to peddle even those the public would in their hearts deny. Indeed, the Filipino can be manipulated by an electoral machinery enough to overwhelm reason and replace those with convenience and utility. This is the inconvenient truth.

That a presidential mandate is spawned from mudslinging, money and machinery more than the electorate’s will condemns us all to deserve the inept and incompetent that we perpetually get.