WE have been nibbled by the ways of dirty politics, we cannot be ready to rise above self, recognizing the decency in men, and the greatness of our dreams. The best of the past is no longer the best of the present.
The last elections served to validate the ever-increasing cost for candidates aspiring for public office. Our democracy is in a free-fall every campaign period. Substance is no longer expansive for electoral victory. It is mostly about the optics of familiarity, “like-ability” and entertainment. Party politics as we used to know it is dead. Consensus is constructed around winnability, endorsements, and not so much principles and national values. The baser instinct of survival for the candidate and the voter in a “moro-moro” called democracy, is essentially a bidding war for public office for the former, and for the latter, side income for much needed staples. At the local level e.g. councilors, mayors, congressmen, is the question – can a serious candidate win without “buying votes?”. At the national level for senators etc., will the absence of multi-million and a billion-peso war chest, diminish, if not steal, the viability of a true-blue statesman? Note the sky-rocketing media/advertising charges?
In a radio station in Cebu, a 30-minute interview contracts a P30,000 pesos fee. Thirty seconder/ one minute television ads of “pay-before-broadcast” remains to be a lucrative business. Charges raised several hundred thousand pesos every campaign period. The law on campaign contributions and expenditures is observed in the negative. Why would a candidate spend more than the sum-total of his term/salary? Unless it is an investment? A business, an ongoing concern for preparing a war-chest for “buying” the next elections?
It has become too expensive for deserving individuals to venture into public office. With money-politics, elections are no longer a test of our strength or resolve as a people, a nation, but a test of our weakness. Jose Rizal advocated for “virtue” in order to be deserving of our independence. Indeed, we are only as strong as the weakest link in a chain of our democratic ideals…
