Underground Election Gift-giving

Several nights before the election, a neighbor known for her affiliation with the local candidates talked us over the prospect of being commissioned to be poll watchers. Together with another neighbor, who stood as one of the coordinators, counted every registered voter in our house. They say all of us would be fielded as poll watchers come election day. Good news considering that we needed money.

Beside us, several neighbors were also promised to be poll watchers.

The pay and the responsibilities were five hundred at the end of the day and all we had to do was stay at the polling place to watch over flying-voters. Come counting time, our responsibilities would be over and an easy cash of Ninoy would be ready for our wallets.

Actually, there is nothing new about this. Me being a poll watcher. I have been a PPCRV watcher before. But the only difference now is the lure of the pay and earning a quick cash which was mostly welcome.

Hour before the election proper I was asked to go to our coordinator. I was expecting a long day in the precinct and a lot of fun mingling with voters. I thought what would happen was the usual giving off of final instruction for our candidates. But instead I was handed two small envelopes and copies of sample ballots with the suggestive instruction that I knew what to do. Inside the small envelopes was two hundred peso bills. Small money but cash nevertheless.

I innocently assumed that the money was an installment pay for the work ahead of us.

I asked, “What precinct would we guard?”

“No,” the coordinator said. “There was a change of plan.”

“Oh,” I said to myself, smiling devilishly.

I have been a voter for a long time and have heard of vote buying. But this is the only time when I was confronted by the actual practice.

What am I to do? I asked myself. Give back the money and say a litany of election ethics that we should follow and get on to talk that this is the reason why nothing is happening in our poor country?

No. I kept the money.

When we were herded off to the polling place, I threw the sample ballots bearing the names of the candidates who obviously were behind this vote buying practice.

I chose the candidates that I felt worthy of my effort to drag myself at the polling place, which was like a trek to the mountain. I filled only the slots for the national election: the senatorial slots and the congressional. The local positions I just dashed off with long hypen to signify that I didn’t have any prospective candidates for the positions.

On the second thought, I might as well have had put coach Flip Saunders’ name for the mayoralty candidate and the rest of the line-up of the Detroit Pistons for the remaining positions.