People and elections

Elections are always fun and exciting. Often, the excitement turns nasty, and you have mudslinging, personal attacks, black propaganda, and character assassinations. Sometimes, and God forbid, you have outright killings. People are divided into several levels of involvement in elections:

First are the mere spectators. They are the ones who simply watch and enjoy the show. They may or may not vote. If a country is like a ship, spectators are merely riders who do not help row the boat.

Second are the voters. They listen to the issues because they want to know whom to vote for. There are two kinds of people in this category: the conscience voters, and the merchant voters. The former vote according to knowledge or conviction, either based on an assessment of the qualification of the candidates, or other personal considerations, like gratitude for previous favor done or given, or relationship. The latter simply sells his vote to the highest bidder.

Of late, a hybrid has evolved. He is the conscience-merchant voter, one who accepts money intended to buy his vote, but still votes whoever he likes. He is not purely conscience because he accepts money for his vote, but he is not also purely merchant because he does not feel obligated to vote for the one who gave him the money.

Third are the participants or players. They are those who do not want to just watch or vote. They want to influence the outcome of elections, in their own small or big way. Players are divided into two several subgroups:

First are the givers. They contribute funds or resources to parties or candidates. Some are in the nature of political-investors, because in funding parties and election activities with huge amounts of money, they expect in return some form of control, favor from, or influence over the group or candidate assisted.

They are called king-makers. Others are just campaign contributors, not for anything in exchange, but out of an honest or genuine desire to help worthy candidates, hoping that it will translate into some solid good for the community. They are simply called helpers. It is widely believed that there are only few, if at all, helpers, among the givers. Most want to be king-makers, or king of kings.

Then there are the goers. They go out, they campaign. They render service in any form or way. Some are compensated, some are volunteers. For better or worse, both givers and goers influence elections.

In today's Philippine politics, we still have a few spectators, as it is usual to post an 80 percent voter turn-out in our elections. The question, however, is, on the level of the voter, how much percent is conscience, merchant, or conscience-merchant vote? Traditional politics wants our voters to be merchants. It is merchant-voting that wins elections for "tradpols", and that keeps the industry of king-making alive.

A fourth group of people in any elections is of the opinion-makers. They identify issues, discuss them, whether to aid or stop a candidate. The honest ones try to verify their facts, and give the other a chance to answer. The paid ones do not care for fact or fairness. Their only concern is to fire and fire and fire. And do not give the enemy a chance to breathe. There will be many of them again these elections.

The spectator, the voter, the player, the opinion-maker.

The first simply watch history, the second and third make it happen, the fourth make, tell, and interpret it.

What is best for democracy and good governance is to turn the spectator into a player, either as giver in the category of helper, or goer in the category of volunteer. The best is to predominate the community with conscience voters, and decrease the merchant votes. As a compromise borne of pragmatism, we have accepted the conscience-merchant voter, but this still encourages kingmakers to wager or gamble on the votes.

We often speak of evangelization. In this country, the least evangelized of our community life is our politics. Here, we are almost completely pagan, heathen, immoral, faithless, godless.

This 2007, we will have a chance again to measure how far we have changed, for the better, or the worse, and know whether we are a redeemed, or an accursed, people.*