WEATHERVANE
By Edgardo Verceles
THE VOICE OF MONEY
The recently concluded election once proved that in an underdeveloped country like the Philippines, the choice of the candidates reflects not to the people's will but the voice of money.In many parts of the country, candidates with the most money to spend invariably won the election. And the money went, not only to legitimate expenses of organizational but where it counted most in winning-in buying votes. Not all the post-election disavowals could hide this truism in the Philippine politics.Not only voters and political leaders talk about it, even the candidates themselves, winners and losers alike, admit the anomalous practice in moments of candidness. But no one appear to embroil them.Notwithstanding this rampant and blatant obnoxious practice of even those who claim to be principled making vote-buying practically a permanent fixture of elections, lawmakers have not made any move to put additional safeguards to curb or stop the nefarious practice and thereby protect the sanctity of the ballot. It seems that everyone is content or resigned to take his chances within the faulty system. The prevention of this noxious form of cheating is left to the COMELEC whose ineptness and incompetence have, however, exacerbated the rampant violation.Perhaps, the solution is not in the area of amending the election law. To our mind, the solution lies in improving the quality of life of the people especially those in the countryside and lifting them from the stark poverty they have been wallowing in for decades and decades past. It is no secret that in rural areas, voters disregard their choices and instead voted for candidates who have them money because this enabled them to buy a few kilos of rice to tide them over a few days.One only has to recall that in the social volcano EDSA !!! that erupted after People's Power II, the masses that participated were mostly the jobless, and homeless derelicts who braved the government forces' funitive wrath for the paltry sums doled out by the unknown instigators and leaders of the failed rebellion.Clearly the solution is in economic upliftment. It is impereative that people must be given employment or alternative sources of livelihood if real democracy is to be achieved. Of course, this fact is quite known. The lamentable problem, however, is that officials who were canditaes once and promised practically by the graves of their parents to work for the achievement of these noble objectives have all too soon forgotten their promises once they got elected and instead worked feverishly in the short span of their term to amass wealth.Hand in hand with poverty alleviation, the youth must be given education by means of which they can lift themselves from the morass of economic deprivation that far too long have trapped them and their parents and grandparents.Only then shall we hear the people's voice and not voice of money during election.
