"How about getting paid for not running?"
"How about getting paid for not running?"
In the heyday of logging, Butuan City was called the “timber capital” of the country. This began in the ’50s until the late ’70s during martial law. By the ’90s, there was very little timber stand left, which until now, the illegal loggers feast upon.
Money came easy for a few loggers, whether native-born like the Plazas, Sanchezes and the Calos, or the migrants from Sorsogon, such as the Aquino brothers, from Panay and elsewhere. The sawmill business, where logs that were deemed unacceptable to Japanese buyers were sawn for the domestic market was in the hands of mostly Chinoy businessmen who came from all over the country, though their ancestors were mostly Fujian-born.
Many poor migrants from the Visayas came to the then-undivided Agusan to work either in the logging firms or the sawmills. The Spanish-descended Don Luis Fernandez put up Nasipit Lumber and then Philippine Wallboard which cut logs in the highlands of Agusan centered in Tungao, and processed the same logs transported via the Agusan River in Nasipit by the bay.
The instant millionaires next engaged in politics, which was their lifeline for the national government to give them more logging areas, then called “concessions” dispensed by the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources (later divided into two departments) called “timber license agreements.”
These millionaires, together with their other Mindanao counterparts from Davao, Surigao, Lanao and Bukidnon were the “toast of Ginza,” spreading cheer among the geishas of Tokyo because they spent money like it was going out of fashion. So did they populate the nightspots of then Dewey Boulevard (now Roxas), which operated 24/7, with a “day” club for politicians who had to go home to their families by nightfall.
Back in the mid-’50s, a logger-politician started the practice of buying votes at P10 to P20 apiece (big money at the time the national minimum wage was P120 a month), and won easily as mayor of Butuan City.
The politicians took to transactional politics, elevating the practice to an art since then.
By the ’60s, the individual vote-buying cost a hundred pesos or more. Nowadays, it goes to multiples approaching even a thousand per vote.
By the ’90s, Mindanao, particularly the logging enclaves where vote-buying started, exported the “trade” to all over the country. First the poorer regions like Samar and Bicol; nowadays there is hardly a province or city where the practice hasn’t become customary.
Politicians buy their way to power, and spend the next three years to first, recover their expenses, and second, “make hay” for the next election where another round of vote-buying is necessary.
How do they recover and prepare for the next election?
Corruption, stupid.
The Local Government Code, which gave substantial IRAs or internal revenue allotments to local government units, while well-intentioned in the spirit of autonomy, has become the biggest source for mayors and governors who spread the gravy to their councilors and barangay chieftains.
For congressmen, the source came from the General Appropriations Act, by way of the so-called pork barrel.
From the ’90s to the present, politics has become a business enterprise for mayors and governors who have control of the IRA which they utilize for “projects” from which commissions are generated, or better still, they and their families are themselves the “contractors” for these projects.
Meanwhile the “pork” gets fatter and fatter. From some 50 million apiece during the time of Cory, the barrel has become laden with hundreds of millions apiece (multiply that by close to 300 and 24 minus one—Ping Lacson). The “wiser” and the more powerfully ensconced in both chambers get a couple of billions, even more, apiece.
Naturally, since politics has become big business, and the Constitution limits terms of office, the business has to be passed on as hereditary “titles” to wife, son or daughter.
Dynasties perpetuate themselves.
But nowadays, there is another transactional permutation to vote-buying, which of course means buying councilor-candidates, or barangay leaders, or the individual voters.
These days, dynasts buy their rivals.
“Huwag ka na lang tumakbo. Gagasta ka pa…eto, pwede na ba 100 million?”
No substantive rival; sure win; no need to spend hundreds of millions.
A powerful Cabinet secretary in a previous administration needed to be congressman. He bought the potential rival who was the political hotshot in the district, for 30 million cash, plus a seat in a termed commission which his president accommodated. The Cabinet member won sin contra and sat in the HoR for three terms.
Scan the provinces, cities and municipalities where local elections will be held come May, and note how many incumbents are without opponents.
Of course, some incumbents or their families have become so entrenched either because they have served their constituents well or they have too much money, or both, so they are “sure winners” and rivals see the contest as a no-win proposition.
Might as well concede at the very start, save money, or better yet, “sell” the prospective candidacy to one’s rival.
But now that the local campaign has started, the problem of senatorial candidates in provinces or cities which are “non contendre” is that voters might not have enough interest to go to the polls come May 13.
Tatamarin na, since his mayor or governor has no opponent anyway.
Thus the no-contest local elections could turn into a bane for the administration’s senatorial candidates, whether PDP or Hugpong, not that it would benefit the opposition either.
Expect low voter turn-out come the 13th of May.