By Joel B. Belinan
As we approach the official election campaign period I thought this is the best time to look at politics in this country. Almost everyone knows that the campaign started way ahead of the official schedule on February 8 for national positions and March 25 for local positions. In practice, and only in this country, everyone plays politics whenever an opportunity presents itself. The funny thing is that when you hear peoples’ comments about politics, an overwhelming majority express disgust or disdain for it.
These are some of its definitions: Politics are the actions or activities concerned with achieving and using power in a country or society; Activities that relate to influencing the actions and policies of a government or getting and keeping power in government; The activities of the government, members of law-making organizations, people who try to influence the way a country is governed: It can also apply to smaller groups like ordinary groups such as business organizations or even cooperatives; When someone or even a small group of people in such aggrupation exert efforts to influence the policy or direction of the group.
Does this mean politics is bad? Not necessarily. It only becomes bad when the one exerting politics or the political players which include you and me (not only the politicians) aim for the benefit of only a few and to the detriment of the majority. In most cases when politicians (elected and appointed officials) do politics to empower themselves instead of empowering the people, then it’s bad politics. Translating these theories in the Philippine situation, things become muddy or rather murky. The best example is a local mayor or governor. A mayor or a governor is looked upon by an overwhelming majority as a walking Automated Teller Machine (ATM) where everyone can go and ask for financial help for almost all kinds of personal needs or events (actual or imagined).
A provincial governor and a highly urbanized city mayor receives P196,000 a monthly salary. Less the taxes and other payables like GSIS, PAG-IBIG, PhilHealth among others, what remains may be more or less P170,000. However, people usually troop to their offices or even in their houses to ask for financial assistance for an array of problems and events such as burial expenses, hospital bills payment, birthday party, concert for a cause, dinner for a cause, tuition fees, the conduct of tournaments, (sports, etc) to mention a few. If in a day an average of 10 people ask for such financial assistance and they are given an average of P3,000 which is a very conservative estimate how long does his salary last? We have to take note too that these politicians have their respective families and, in some instances, several families to support.
Some may say that a governor, a mayor, or those higher officials have discretionary funds or in the case of the President, Presidential social funds. These funds’ usage, however, are supposed to be governed by law and most of those enumerated reasons for asking assistance do not qualify. Although in practice, people in government offices who oversee the processing of such funds for release have more than a hundred ways to stretch and make things possible.
One important thing is that during elections, candidates spend so much that if one computes the actual expenditures (not just those reported with the BIR), the salary and other perks of winning candidates they got from their 3 years in office will never be enough to offset these. For example, during elections in many places, many candidates’ houses become free kitchens for almost everyone. A friend of mine said that in one capital town in the Cordillera, folks going to their fields in the morning pass by a candidate’s house for a meal and again before going home in the afternoon. This routine becomes a regular thing for the entire duration of the campaign period. Thus, there was this statement before that while a Canao (feast thrown by a person) by a rich man in Benguet takes a minimum of 21 days of butchering one or more pigs per day, a candidate may be butchering a pig or two per day for 45 days.
The question now is how do these officials cope with the problem. They have what is called silent fundraising. Almost everyone knows what they call commission from projects. Although I am not saying that all officials practice this form of corruption, it can be said that it has been a practice with just a few exceptions. The problem with this commission or taking of a certain percentage from projects is that it is also being promoted by the private sector or the contractors as a means to assure their getting government contracts. In many instances, these officials have their dummy contractors who bag the juicy projects.
Procurement of government equipment and supplies (stationaries, medicines, vehicles, etc.) is another big source of kickbacks. To be sure there are more possible areas in the government system where officials can get money but my little information only ends here. Outside of the system are those so-called illegals that include but not limited to the following: illegal gambling, tolerance of prohibited businesses due to environmental issues, circumvention of rules to pave the issuance of permits, etc. The worst thing is that there have been allegations of public officials engaged in heinous criminal activities such as illegal drug syndicate operations, operation of prostitution dens, and even liquidation of people. All these of course are geared towards accumulating money to be able to keep on having enough for the throng of people that looks at them as walking banks and at the same time ensuring their stay in power even after the next election. So, who’s to blame? I say everyone is to blame although the bigger responsibility lies on the shoulders of the leaders (politicians).**
