“Son of a gun, P2,500 per voter?!” I asked incredulously two Ordinary
Joes, who came from a barangay in the Third Congressional District of my province, who bragged to me that the sum
was the amount shelled out by the candidate for the kapitan (village chief)
seat in their barangay.
“The biggest amount given to a voter
during a village election as far as I know held in a village in Dagupan City
was P1,000, “ I quoted what a re-elective Kap told me when he out smarted his
opponent in an ingratiation contest who first gave P700 per voter.
“Pataasan kami (We have to bid out
each other),” he quipped.
| SPY DRONE? Photo Credit: Atlas Network |
Yesterday
or four days before the D-Day Village Poll, I dropped by at the house cum
headquarter of a re-elective village chairperson where he was with his brood
and father, a former mayor, giving their leaders wads of P1,000 bills with instruction to surreptitiously
slip in the hands of voters in that Thursday afternoon to win their loyalty.
“Aabot ba kayo ng P,1000 sa bigayan
dito, Mayor ? (Would you reach P1000 per voter in your vote buy, mayor?)” I posed.
“Iyan,
tag isang libo na iyan. Iyan na ang bigayan namin ngayong araw (Each of the P1,000
bills, that’s what we give today),” he said.
He told me
the financial dole out will spike if the rival (a businessman) of his son, will
give P1,000 to each of the five thousand registered voters in the village.
“In case he will do that we are going to
launch a second wave (slang for second set of vote buying) with a much bigger
amount, “the successful trader-politico told me and other callers.
One of his
leaders said that what the ex-mayor has been given was “peanut” compared to an
incumbent mayor whose son runs for the top barangay post.
“Tag P2,500 per voter sa Barangay X. Bukod
sa mga goons, may drone pa sila para mag spy sa mga kalaban at goons nila kung
saan pumupunta or kung ano ang sinasabi sa sortie (They gave P2,500 each voter
in Barangay X. Aside from their goons, they have drone to spy on their
opponents and their goons whenever they go to their sorties),” he told me amused by describing a disturbed group of people listening to the
speeches of the candidates while a drone whirled over their head.
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Contact: totomortz@yahoo.com
(You can read my selected columns at mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)
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