Sharing Garden and the Last Election

Some few critical people say it is normal for “Filipinos” to choose the easy way or result to what they do. I mean the expression they call “easy money”, or being paid instantly for their service. For decades of hardship and political trauma, people have been attuned into the notion of instant ease and pleasure against poverty and destitution that they are facing no matter what this may take. So last month we had an election and many people participated. There were several news about cheating, serious technical errors, and of course, violence. There were also ridiculous, stupid, and devious political ads about many different lying and power hungry candidates that will do anything just to mislead the voters and win their trust. There were also actual killings for the sake of holding the power and the key to the government budgets and political projects. The state was always in action and the Media made sure that the masses will be captivated and deceived by this spectacle and illusion of "nation-ness and social democracy".

Please check these sites for more info:

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/408153/seven-dead-in-philippine-election-day-violence

http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2013/05/07/939222/election-violence-35-killed-so-far

 Yes it was dirty, the tricks, the whole dynamics of the election. Unknown to many, there were several cases of abuse and exploitation happening all over the country. Despite their hard life, most people are not interested to know what is happening. I was once asked by a neighbor who am I going to vote. I answered him without hesitation that I don’t want to vote and I don’t have a plan to participate in that stupid circus. I explained to him my views about the subject and have him agreed to my opinions about these candidates and the system in general. I also told him that those are the reasons why I don’t want to ask help from the government or any politician for this project. It’s because many times people suggested to me that if I ask the local government for support, they will help me make the SG successful. So as what I usually answer, I say no I don’t want to let them use me or take advantage to the SG for their own sake. He appreciated the fact that I don’t want to sell out, and we continued to express our views without offending each other that might create another obstacle to SG. I then concluded that perhaps the neighbor’s attitude towards the project has the same patterns with their attitude towards politics or election in particular.

 I mean maybe they want easy things for the garden as well. In elections, even though people knew how bullshit and corrupt the politicians are, and they already have distrust on these people, they still allow themselves to be bought. They still work for these people during election season and this is a very sad picture of how indifferent or pathetic they are. First, they allow these people to rule over them by accepting the authority and they help these politicians to get into the power again to exploit them more. In many parts of the country, politics is known to be the greatest feast of corruption. For so many years this type of people are looting and exploiting the resources to a great extent. Voters or ordinary citizens are drowning in poverty while politicians get richer and richer. From “Barangay” to the National level, millions of pesos are being stolen every year for various stupid reasons and excuses they call “government projects” but in reality nothing is really happening except for more favors to businesses and rich people. In some other parts of the country, sad to say, people get paid for giving the votes of their whole family. I heard some candidates pay 10,000Php just get the whole family vote. Some even uses fake money to deceive and riff the voters off. 

Here in Davao, I heard that sometimes some politicians pay 250Php for a rally and then make a list of these people perhaps to make sure that those participants who accepted the amount will vote for them. I couldn’t tell more but all I can say is that it’s quite unusual for a decent person or politician to do these kinds of things. But as you can see the pattern, this is another manifestation of “easy money mentality”. For some of these people, it is a natural thing to do to “take back what’s been stolen” from them. It is a common expectation that these politicians will steal from the people anyway, why don’t accept that money or sell their votes?