ANTITUSSIVE

COMMENTARY: By Romel M. Oribe / MindaNews / 15 June May 2004 M15oribe TAGO, Surigao del Sur -- The recent elections, from where I sat, could only be viewed as a money contest, a price war. But before you sue me, let me explain. Since money is now believed by politicians to be the single most effective way of winning votes, it has become synonymous with election itself. In Surigao del Sur we call election money as tili-tili or rain shower, but that would have to change because on May 11 it proved to be much more than just a trickle. In fact, it made people pay their electric bills that fell due a day after elections thus making the electric cooperative, I guess, achieve its highest collection rate in three years. It also must have answered the cell card needs of my nephew because he didn't ask me for pasa load for over a week. A habitual itinerant, he stayed home on election eve not wanting to miss the candidates who did a "house-to-house" distribution of bills crisp enough to shave one's moustache with, stapled to a piece of paper that had their names computer printed in bold font. It is of interest that the traditional vote buying method has been supplanted by a scheme that has voters beating politicians at their own game. Time was when politicians buttonholed the electorate either by having them write contra senyas on their ballots or sign papers upon receipt of tili-tili. Now voters will have none of these, and instead they tacitly declare that if a deal has to be struck, it has to be on their own terms, for after all, there are other politicians out there who are too willing to accommodate their whims. The voter hacked this through a homemade sample ballot that he hustled and peddled to candidates who were willing to pay for their inclusion, making no bones about his "first-paid, first-voted" policy and his awarding the final slots to the highest bidder. In a run-up to E-day, the voter never stopped negotiating because even if he had filled-up his slate there were ballot-raiding candidates who offered to buy out and have their stickers superimposed on the names of the unwitting casualties. The cyclic element of this gambit had the voter entering the booth with a sample ballot that had more layers than a cabbage. Blame this on "planting rice," a euphemism for indiscriminate vote buying where politicians, like farmers, cast monetary seeds unbothered whether they grow or not. Banking on voters' conscience, this strategy, while affording a bumper crop for the electorate, is what leads politicians to experience fiscal El Nino afterwards. A friend whose father ran for councilor said he "planted rice" worth 10,000 heads but reaped only 4,800. Whew, that's 52% mortality rate! At 20 pesos per, that's like throwing 104,000 pesos to the wind. Some candidates distributed a mishmash of the following; rice, noodles, coffee, milk, sugar, candies, toothbrush, lighter, bath soaps and detergents. Another friend told me that it took her almost a month to pack and over three days to have her goodies delivered to the voters' homes. With half of a loser's smile on her face she added that cash would have been easier, cheaper and more discreet. Surprisingly some voters may have been pricked by their conscience after accepting tili-tili from all sides because there were ballots that contained 15 names on a supposedly 8-man council. Either that or they were just scrupulously fair. It could also be that they simply wanted to fry politicians twice over through spoiled ballots. Ahhh but I love those voters who added humor to their ballots by making them read like a grocery list. To illustrate using fictitious names, imagine you're inside a packed classroom where votes are being canvassed. The teacher opens a ballot and goes, "Mayor: Manuel Montero, P300; Vice Mayor: Rose Disca, P150; Sangguniang Bayan: Medrano, 30; Orag, Mr. Clean; Subibi, Maggie Noodle Soup; Estrada, 20; Caser, Bear Brand; Acevedo, 25; Ugay, Sky Flakes; Luna, NFA rice." By the time the teacher is done, you're teary-eyed and like me you don't know whether from too much laughing or from the biting reality of how the right of suffrage has gone the way of the most obscene. My province reportedly showed at least 50% decline in the number of candidates in 2004 over 2001. This could be an indication that running a campaign in Surigao del Sur spells financial bloodbath, thus slowly easing out political gladiators from an arena whose rules are defined solely by the color of money. After the full commodification of the ballot in the May 11 polls, there's no second guessing what the political landscape will be from here on. But at this early somebody has told me that if this declining trend continues, we might be paying people to run in 2010. Tsk, tsk, tsk that means I can't laugh out loud like I did the day after elections when my favorite sari-sari store gave me a change that included an orange bill still stapled to the name of the candidate who swore he won by the sheer strength of his vocal chord and sex appeal. (MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Romel M. Oribe of Tago, Surigao del Sur is thirtysomething. He was a fellow at the 8th Iligan National Writers Workshop. You may e-mail the author at romeloribe@yahoo.com)