Money always talks

Rhona Canoy .

SO… In the bloody aftermath of the latest barangay elections, everyone is a political analyst with opinions which are nothing new. The general assumption being that winners were those who spent the most. This goes for Sangguniang Kabataan victors as well. And everyone accepts this as the truth and the norm. And these people are going to get proclaimed on June 30, 2018. Yes, we are appropriately pissed; no, this is not the first time it’s happened; yes, it will happen again as it has happened countless times before. What then have we become?

Sadly, we all are witness to this degradation of our electoral process. I’m a bit dismayed at how blatantly and shamelessly candidates corrupt these elections. Some political figures’ feathers were ruffled by my previous column, which was not aimed at any persons in particular by any means, although I did take liberties with the obvious examples at hand. But doesn’t our acceptance and readiness to believe the lack of integrity in our elections (which seems to be exponentially worsening) kind of prove my point? Or points, for that matter?

The issue of vote buying has become such an integral part of any candidate’s logistical machinery that one no longer doubts or questions its existence. It has been finessed into the system in the form of recruiting “watchers.” Granted, being a watcher for a particular candidate doesn’t guarantee that one will vote for the purveyor of payroll, but it is an unspoken agreement. And one would hope that the watcher signs up with the candidate of choice. So this is how vote buying becomes a legitimate operation. It’s called “palista”—to get put on the list. And the candidate who has the funds to pay for more watchers with a bigger “honorarium” ostensibly wins. Oh, and the watchers’ families are expected to vote for their candidate as well. This part is where I’m not sure how money changes hands, but I (along with thousands of other Filipinos) am sure it does.

The “money stapled to the sample ballot” ploy exists too, but this is small change, literally and figuratively. Which leads me to my next disappointment. What political whores we have become, that we can casually sell our precious right to vote for a measly P20 or P50. And we, like any seasoned hooker, will stand at the side of the road patiently waiting for the rainfall. For such a measly amount, we relinquish all and not even because we need the money apparently. I was chatting with a young voter (first time SK) about what the vote means and why it shouldn’t be given away for any amount of money in the world. Her response actually stunned me into silence. “OK na, ma’am. Bisan pang-manicure na man lang.” The closest I can translate (for non-Bisaya folks) is, “That’s OK, ma’am. At least to pay for a manicure.” What the fadafadafaq.

We must then assume that this dynamic has become the norm, the acceptable norm at that. We cannot blame only the candidate and his or her machinery. This would not be if we were not part of that system. So it is safe to say that our culture has embraced this relationship. And this makes us as much to blame for the lousy government that we have. After all, didn’t someone once say, “We have the best government that money can buy”?

But let’s go a bit deeper. The morning after elections (I voted, by the way), my father brought up an interesting fact over breakfast. As we both puzzled over what to write about this week, he for his radio program Perspective and I for this column, he brought up a valid point. In discussing the apparently easily corruptible nature of the Pinoy, he mused that the Bisayan language has no word for honest. One must be aware that the famous atorni is known for his awesome command of the pure Bisaya language. Therefore this observation warranted an hour-long discussion about what other words don’t exist.

Before you rise up and tell me he’s wrong in the comments section below, allow me to clarify. “Matinud-anon” means truthful, not honest. “Matarong” means righteous, not honest. “Maligdong” means upright, not honest. No word for honest. And no word for morals, nor for ethics. “Moralidad” is Spanish, not Bisayan. “Etika” (which I’m not even sure is a real word although I’ve heard it used) certainly comes from some foreign language, not Bisayan. It makes one wonder why these concepts which we believe to be so basic in any decent human being have no etymological reference in our native mother tongue. So we didn’t know what these were until the Spaniards came and discovered us?

When we defend our character, we usually use terms of denial. I am not a thief. I am not a liar. I am not a cheat. I am not a bully. We don’t say what we are but rather what we are not. Which brings me to my current state of puzzlement. Are all our moral and ethical constructs learned from the conquistadores? What were we before they came? Were we inherently a noble culture that didn’t know these evils until we got corrupted? Or were we already corrupt by nature? Which makes the idea of cleaning up our system a wrong notion. Maybe we don’t need to clean up our system. Maybe we need to change our nature and our culture to something we have never been.

We didn’t have a word for “corrupt” until the word “kurakot” was coined a few decades ago. So I guess even those questions are questionable. How bleak.