PASSING LANES

Political desperados
Jorge Pawid

This last week of the election campaign is the most critical stage. Desperate candidates and their supporters will resort to almost everything they could muster just to get the votes needed to win convincingly.

The worst tactic would be to have their opponents and avid supporters assassinated. This is not new to Philippine politics. In fact, it has already started in some areas and some to a point of success. Remember that for some politicians, the end would justify the means.

Election bigwigs have since identified the so-called “areas of concern” but have failed to contain the violence that goes with politics. It is intrinsically part of Philippine politics.

The quickest way to win an election is to eliminate the strongest perceived opponent. And what would be the best way if not to assassinate the rival. Only recently, you have the murder of the San Carlos City mayor in Pangasinan; the vice governor of Kalinga province and you name elsewhere.

If the assassination try is unsuccessful, the camp ordering the slay attempt would be content if the intended target is seriously hurt and unable to continue campaigning.

Some politicians would even go to the point of staging their own “ambushes” and live to pin the blame on their innocent opponents. This is one way of eliciting sympathy votes from unsuspecting voters and even seriously dent to winning chances of the supposed perpetrator.

There are other desperate attempts to eliminate the opposition in politics. Disqualification cases are a classic example. For many legal valid or imagined reasons, the courts and the Commission on Elections are the venues for petitions seeking the disqualification of those seeking elective positions.

The issues of violations to campaign laws are raised before the courts. The most common is the accusation of vote-buying.

Vote-buying comes in many forms. Money could be given directly to the voter in exchange for a vote in favor of a certain candidate or slate. The bagmen are usually trusted henchmen of the candidate. The value varies depending on the resources of the candidate.

In direct vote-buying, it could be an individual or family or even group vote that would be asked to vote for the candidate-source of the money.

Other forms of vote-buying are blatantly observed. The donation of some goods and items to individuals or certain groups in exchange for votes favoring the donor is common. Either the individual or group asks for the items or the candidate voluntarily donates the item/s to them with the condition that their votes go to her/him.

Vote-buying is the hardest case to prove. How many cases have been filed on this issue and we have not heard of a single instance wherein the petitioner won their case. Well, some cases are intended only to harass the opponent or tag the opponent as a vote-buyer.

In other instances, the threat to life and limb of voters is another desperate attempt to “court” the votes. Voters are threatened to vote for a certain candidate or the slate by known goons otherwise, the voter or any member of the family is harmed physically.

The voter is practically held hostage. In rural areas, it is easy to monitor the expected votes especially if there are only 1-3 precincts to be watched. The results will indicate the effectiveness of the physical threat.

And in some situations, the threats are fulfilled especially if the supposed candidate/s to be favored lost their electoral bids. Another interesting tactic would be to prevent a certain individual, family or group/s adverse to the candidacy of a certain candidate or group from voting.

Elimination “pronto” would be one way. Another would be to threaten them to forget going to the polling place. And in many other ways.

In Philippine setting, other desperate attempts expected during the last few days before election day are the release of black propaganda (as presented in our previous column). There are many other forms we do not know of. These are secrets in the bag of tricks of seasoned politicians.