Via Times - || Publisher's Note Page ||

EDITORIAL:
By Joe Mauricio

TITLE: Millions of pesos spent in RP political campaigning

Several Philippine senatorial and congressional candidates who are making feverish dash to the 2007 May elections peso-raising derby feel obliged to the tastelessness of the political races. Both senatorial and congressional candidates are hardly pausing their way to piling up millions of pesos. This is already a record-breaking campaign for the sheer volume of money spent and money generated. It also is setting a new low with ludicrously premature handicapping of the race based on pollsters’ call on interviews of people to fit their paying clients. Just four weeks before election, and the fundraising and spending data are being treated like the dawning of poll results from Pulse Asia in Metro Manila. All this in the name of a race that is supposed to be a different sort of competitions --if not of ideas--at least, of personalities and positions. This is just another example of picking winners before the votes are cast. This year, the Philippines’ political industry is spurning the money before it is spent. That is, if only the voters’ optimism about the Philippines’ political system could rise in direct proportion to the money stacks of the candidates. If these candidates are to govern, the Genuine Opposition, Team Unity, PartyList, or the Independent candidates, how are they going to achieve the goals they claim to share? We have nothing against partisanship, and they have every right to reward their supporters and pursue their policy goals. But our good guess is that the Genuine Opposition party would help themselves more and have a better chance of gaining some seats on both senatorial and congressional seats in 2007, if they show they are open to compromise and point to priorities of the Philippines that became law (i.e., anti-terror bill). The alternative is to frame a largely partisan agenda that may pass the House but will either die in the Senate or be vetoed by the President. These include the largely political pay-off or cutting off of pork barrel funds which are a quick source of funds for politicians in vote-buying scheme. These are crowd-pleasers, but to cut the pork barrel funds is a political suicide. But this is a risky strategy that would give a lie to the claim that Genuine Opposition candidates could govern better than the administration candidates, or vice versa. But whoever governs our country must remember that the salary of political candidates (32,000 pesos for Senators) seeking political positions is much lower than the garbage collectors of Chicago (at minimum annual salary of $120,000). `` The question is, why do Pinoy candidates spend millions of pesos to win an election, in exchange for a lot less monetary salary than what they would spend during the political campaigns? Another question is, how are they going to recover the millions of pesos spent? Is it because once they win and get into power, they can gain back (& much more) what they spent in political campaigning? If this is the scenario, is corruption’s DNA totally ingrained in Pinoy politicians?