Crumbs

IT is one of those big pre-election pitches that are as predictable as the sunrise but whose impact has been as vague and ambiguous as the boundaries that divide life and death.

On Sunday, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines extolled in a pastoral letter its faithful flock to do whatever they can to prevent cheating and fraud in the mid-term elections this May, where 17,000 positions are up for grabs, including half the seats in the Senate and all seats in the House of Representatives.

The bishops stressed that “many of our current political problems, which have hindered fuller economic development and social justice, especially for the poor, can be traced to unresolved questions concerning the conduct of past elections.”

“As a nation,” they warned, “we cannot afford yet another controversial electoral exercise that further aggravates social distrust and hopelessness.”

The bishops riled over two cases in particular: the “Hello, Garci” scandal that marred the 2004 presidential elections and set off an impeachment case against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo; and, the P728-million fertilizer fund scam

One archbishop suggests that the mid-term elections will serve as a referendum and provide closure to questions regarding Mrs. Arroyo’s leadership. If the President’s party wins, he argues, then she deserves to stay in office; if the opposition wins, then the people has rejected her.

We agree with the bishops that electoral fraud is a problem that needs to be taken cared of for our nation to really grow, not only economically and politically, but also spiritually.

The situation on the ground, however, isn’t as two-dimensional as the piece of paper a pastoral letter is written on or an archbishop’s simple logic.

Let’s face it. Cheating in this country pays, and it pays because it’s easy. It’s easy because when it comes to deciding what names to write on a ballot, the question ultimately is: What have you done for me lately?

Visit the Manila city council, and you’ll get a clearer picture of how politics is won and lost in this country. Councilors working the stands and the lounge – shaking hands, doling out loose change, approving requests for financial assistance – have a better chance of getting re-elected than those working the podium.

One alderman’s tactic has been to go around his district at night looking for a wake. He’s just following his instincts. He knows precisely that a P500 plucked from his own pocket and given to a grieving family will get him farther than any bombastic rhetoric about the cancer that is eating into the moral fiber of our society.

Crumbs rain down on the masses during an election year, and these crumbs often translate into votes.

Cheating feeds into the desperation that poverty breeds. When faced with a moral dilemma as to whether he should accept a P500 bill and vote a candidate he dislikes or walk away and vote according to his conscience, what do you think a jobless father of seven young children, one of whom is down with dengue in a local hospital, would do?

It’s easy to extol the masses with something like, “Let us regain our dignity.” But by God, be realistic. You can’t eat dignity. When the dilemma is between dying of hunger or selling out to get crumbs from an opportunistic politician, the choice is pretty obvious.

Are we being defeatists? No. We merely wish to point out that when we proselytize to the masses about doing the right thing, we have to make sure we fully grasp the gravity of the depravity and desperation they experience.