By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
If you want to catch majority of the people involved in the buying and selling of votes in one place, go to church the Sunday preceding elections in Christian communities all over the archipelago. Most if not all the voters who sold their votes and still to sell their votes would be performing their religious duties for the week. The politicians who have been and are trying to buy their way to political positions are also there along with their families fervently praying for victory in the polls even as the frenzied last minute vote-buying activities of their supporters go on uninterrupted. The same hands which received the money for votes and the same hands which offered that money will handle the body and blood of Christ. If only Christianity pervades our lives in between communions including the weeks approaching elections, our country will be entirely different as there could be no way this orgy of buying and selling of positions of leadership in government could happen giving candidates with the best interest of the public in their hearts and minds better chances in the polls.
It is very clear that true Christians do not make merchandise of votes. First, it violates the laws of the country and Christians are supposed to be law-abiding. Second, it violates the conscience and Christians are supposed to follow the dictates of their conscience. Third, the act of selecting leaders as taught in the Scriptures emphasizes fitness to the position and other qualities which serve one well in public service (I Timothy 3; Psalm 78:72; I Peter 5:2) Fourth, the acts of Esau of selling his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew and of Judas of selling Christ for 30 pieces of silver are condemned by the Scriptures as ignominious acts. The prostitution of suffrage to the highest bidder who most likely is a predatory character and all the implications it holds on the public’s welfare places the sale of votes in the same category as that of the acts of Esau and Judas.
For so long as the a large segment of the electorate of this country which ironically prides itself as the only Christian nation in Asia continue to think and act as though Christians can sell their votes, we will remain third world as the people who only care for their own selfish interests despite their volume of words to the contrary and elaborate show of piety as evident in church the day preceding elections will continue to decide the affairs of our localities and our nation.
The cleansing of our electoral culture hinges on the immediate transformation of the Christianity we practice. Judging from the reduction our elections from an activity of choosing people who could lead us best to that of a plain and simple auction of our suffrage, it is clear that the Christianity prevailing in the country is a travesty of what Christ and His disciples taught. You can just conjure the glaring disparity by the fact that both vote buyers and sellers make a mockery of the body and blood of Christ the day before elections. I Corinthians 11: 27 warns: “So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.” How can buyers and sellers of votes worthily partake of the body and blood of Christ when their acts are far more repugnant than those of the merchants and money changers Christ expelled from the temple?
It is only after we truly experience the new birth (John 3: 5-8) will be empowered to resist the temptation of treating political positions as chances of aggrandizing ourselves thereby using every means fair or foul to attain them and in the case of ordinary voters, the temptation of fleeting gain in exchange for our right to choose the most qualified. Corinthians 5:17 says: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
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