Polyetos

BENCHWARMER
Ramon S. Dacawi

Someone apparently paid to do it appeared at a recent wake and right there and then began handing out to those who came to pay their respects leaflets of a local candidate for the May 10 polls.

“Bawal ‘yan (That’s prohibited),” I told the intrude, quite rudely. I doubted if there’s a legal ban on using a wake to push a campaign but used “bawal” anyway. Appealing for sensitivity won’t work on those who don’t have it. It didn’t work. He went on like he didn’t hear or understand, determined to make a buck at the expense of mourning.

I got a leaflet to calm myself by knowing who not to vote for. Don’t be angry, get even on election day. It bore the name and impeccable credentials of a candidate I decided early on to include in my list.

I was into re-thinking when a relative of my candidate arrived, as if on cue from the leaflet distributor. He was not campaigning but still gave the impression like he was.He shook hands and exuded confidence – as in “all is fair in love, war and politics”.

A quiet presence would have been more effective, as he’s known almost by everybody who was there. He was defeating his double intention of extending condolence and the mileage of my candidate.

On the way home from the wake, the image of that egg-looking zero before the candidate’s name in the ballot appeared moving to the right of the surname – like a score. The more the candidate needed my vote, I told myself. After all, the wannabe had nothing to do with supporters’ insensitivity and their assumption and presumption that some of those at the wake were not smart enough to throw the leaflets into the garbage bin.

My candidate’s leaflet contained an impressive track record of service. However good-looking the photos are, some leaflets are simply empty, credential-wise and platform-wise. A bet donates a ball or installs or paints a basketball ring and board and then proclaims himself a leading advocate of youth and sports development. Another plants a few tree seedlings – even out of the planting season – and then assumes the title of an accomplished environmentalist, as announced by his billboards nailed on trees.

Most or all of the Pied Pipers to Malacanang offer the glittering generality of a strong but vague assurance they’d erase poverty once we shoo them into the palace. They give the impression they didn’t because they couldn’t make a dent on want during all those years they were in Congress or in the national cabinet.

Those immersed in actual poverty alleviation for years now tell us there’s no easy fix to poverty. Otherwise, squalor won’t be a lingering, recurring issue but a thing of the past rather than a sure thing of the present and of the future. Hunger stalks millions of people the moment they wake up and until they spread their sleeping cartons on the streets.

Except, of course, for a candidate who wins and goes on to improve and expand his or her lot, literally and otherwise. Thing is, you don’t need to win to make a difference for the youth, the environment, for the sick and needy. You need not quote scripture, particularly James 2: 14-18, to live out its message: Faith without action is dead.

Those who flesh out their programs, whether these are announced in their “polyetos” or not, and regardless of the election outcome, are the ones we need to remember in the next polls.

But the voters’ memory is short. We lose sight of the platforms that our own candidates often drop even before our votes for them are counted. Our memory is limited to name recall, linked to showbiz, scandals and fireworks in the halls of power, to the popular political surnames being passed on to younger kin taking over as candidates, as if capacity to serve and govern is a family or clan monopoly.

To nail candidates to their platforms, perhaps the media here can mount a public pledging session, for the candidates to voluntarily swear to God, country, community, the youth, children and nature that they’ll pursue their platforms, whether they win or lose. The actual grounding of the platform can then be validated within the three-year period before the next hustings.

Some elected ones may be not that brainy or talkative, but they employ the best staff to conceptualize and implement good projects and programs. Now and then, we have voters who help enact good laws they themselves draft and then hand over to a legislator to sponsor, even if the latter later take full credit for the idea once it passes.

One need not run to be able to help effect change. Efren Penaflorida, CNN’s Hero of the Year, showed us how it can be done. He had no classroom, so he puashed a cart loaded with writing boards, books and pencils into the slums, so kids where he came from can also learn to read and write.

Getting elected can even limit your capacity to do things, except in terms of funding what you want to do, which is to get re-elected. That’s why some senators and congressmen, mandated by law to legislate laws, sometimes act like executives mandated to implement infrastructure and other projects that bear their names.

Some councilors and provincial board members follow suit, acting like mayors and governors. So we have mayors and governors find their projects as executives blocked by legislators who demand a share of the billing and credit for a program – in aid of re-election or aiming for a higher elective post, that of the mayor or governor, who then feels threatened and so nips ambition in the bud.

That’s why I never run, even with the unsolicited prodding of some people I always thought were close to me until they start broaching the weird idea.

“Kayam, mangabak ka, tulongan da ka,” they say and so become suspect. “N’ya aya basol ko kadakayo ta mangipaspasubo kayo?,” I ask, swearing I haven’t lost my head. “Kayat mo nga sawen nadadael ulo dagiti agtartaray?” “Wen a no awan kwarta da.” (e-mail: mondaxbench@yahoo.com for comments).