Clarifying what Leni meant by "keep the money"

his is not the first time I’ve heard the line (and I use my own name so I don’t offend any candidate) “Ang pera sa bulsa, si Joel sa balota!”

In all Philippine elections I’ve witnessed in my lifetime, votebuying always played a role in swinging the results in favor of moneyed candidates. So it’s not surprising that in this early runup to the May 2022 elections, this most intractable of all election crimes is again animating the nationwide debate between moralists and pragmatists.

The pragmatists—practical-minded people with no qualms about speaking out of both corners of the mouth—recite their signature mantra that taking the money and voting one’s conscience regardless is the no-brainer solution to this dilemma.

This, of course, prompts the moralists to ask what kind of conscience would anyone who takes the money possibly have?

As if we didn’t already have enough issues to divide us as a nation, these hissing spats on whether “to bid or not to bid” for votes on sale is even dividing people belonging to the same camp.

Independent presidentiable Leni Robredo put some supporters on gimbal lock when she said in an interview that anyone offered money by votebuyers shouldn’t struggle with accepting it guilt-free—keeping in mind where the money likely came from: stolen from the public coffers.

But what if the wealthy candidate is running for office for the first time? That candidate would certainly “reimburse” himself of the cost of votebuying if elected. So taking his money in advance actually provides him the impetus to steal once in office.

It didn’t sound like the Leni I knew so I reviewed the videoclip and saw the subtle context many—myself included—missed. She was recounting her own experience when she ran against the well-oiled campaign machinery of the Villafuerte political dynasty in CamSur, back in the day. Stripped of all the hypotheticals, the situation becomes more focused. Stricken by conscience some supporters unburdened to her that they had accepted vote money—fait accompli—before she had gotten to them in the campaign. Therefore would she accept their support even if they were morally unclean? So she helped them exorcise the false pangs of conscience by telling them if they voted their conscience and breached the votebuying contract they would precisely be undoing their involvement in votebuying in the first place.

If you still missed the subtle nuance of a difference there, let me restate it. She didn’t tell anyone to take any money TOMORROW, she was just telling them what to do and how to feel if they had ALREADY taken the money YESTERDAY--as a balm for their conscience having found remorse a day too late.

Somehow, I don’t struggle too much agreeing with that, especially since she had come out strongly denouncing votebuying in other interviews that followed. Sadly though, logical acrobatics like that won’t be enough to appease the Pharisees among the ranks of Leni supporters. I know some peers in the legal profession really squirmed hard in their seats listening to it.

I have a much easier way of dealing with it, and it has nothing to do with moral polemics. It’s all about understanding that there is no—in fact there can never be—a one-size-fits-all message to cater to a wide support base, especially one as diverse as hers.

She was talking to the dirt-poor, to many of whom a hundred pesos is equivalent to a few scrappy meals. But even the poor are entited to dignity. The central strategy of votebuying is not to get the poor to sell their votes, it’s to get them to devalue their own dignity. Once you succeed in making someone feel worthless, you can buy their vote even cheaper.

Leni understands the idea of “have not” comprehensively, and extends the hand of vindication to those who had been convinced they had sold their soul for a bowl of porridge.

Leni knows “lugaw”—they deride her for it. But the poor see hope, and some measure of redemption in her message: you took their money, they took your dignity, but don’t you believe they took your soul. Clearly you could still discern right from wrong, which means your heart and soul are intact. Now just let your mind follow your heart, and you’ll be fine on election day.

It’s a totally ineffective message to anyone who has never missed a meal.

How to protect Leni Robredo from good intentions

eni Robredo’s campaign is red-hot—or pink-hot, if you will. She is well received in many sectors because her sincerity is authentic. The outpouring of support for her candidacy is an unmistakable sign that she can unite opposition forces, both mainstream and militant, while maintaining her appeal to less-radicalized elements of society. To me, she is the more fitting allegory to Barak Obama for reasons not having to do with gender or race wars, but with well-calculated political pragmatism. Obama was black but not quite Black Panther. He did not rely on the race card, confounding many in the black community who actually accused him of not being proudly  “black enough.” Obama did not panic. He cannot see black people voting for John McCain, but he saw it was viable to win some white support so long as he didn’t spook them with the black stereotype.

   Leni Robredo is the antithesis of Rodrigo Duterte. But she is not naive to think that a wholesale rejection of the traditional politics that Duterte represents is necessarily wise. She doesn’t see the red or  yellow brigades voting for Marcos, or other Duterte proxies either. But she can certainly win over many disappointed Duterte votes, viably even Marcos’ vaunted Solid North so long as she didn’t channel Cory Aquino too strongly as to preemptively repulse them.

   It won’t take long, when Leni starts embracing the eclectic Filipino masses who are not all doctrinaire socialists, before you begin to hear the radical left complain that Leni Robredo is not “opposition enough.”

   So dyeing her political brand pink is a masterful stroke. It sends a strong statement that she doesn’t intend to be purely centrist yellow or militant leftist red.  

   I worry that it is not her detractors but her own supporters who may not get it. The overeager ones, especially, may be clinging to the antiquated dogma  that to support a candidate is to own her politics, forgetting that politics is addition, not antagonism.

   I’ve observed this early in social media that some are convinced demonizing Leni’s opponents is the way to go. Take the anti-historical revisionists, for instance. I agree that the Marcos family are kleptocrats of the highest order. This is a historical fact.  If some people insist on remaining in denial of it after forty-nine years of immersion in the fact, clearly reason cannot be the reason. They could only have been part of the kleptocracy in ways big or small. Proselytizing among their number is a total waste of time. Make no mistake,  plunder as epic in scale as the Marcoses did it must not be erased from memory. But condemning the revision of history is meaningless to  generations that do not know history. The campaign period is too short a time to educate e-gaming millennials who weren’t born yet when Marcos was dictator. Remember, one needs only to have been born after 2003 to vote.

   The same goes for human rights abuses during Marcos’ time. If people were not fazed by all that killing as they were happening, how much more will their outrage be inflamed to be reminded about it four decades after the fact? The atrocities deserve rich condemnation of course. But they cannot merit central focus in a short election campaign just for the blood-curdling memories they evoke.   All the horrendous memories of the holocaust is not preventing the reemergence of ultra rght wing fascism now sweeping across Europe. Neither did the kumbayah legacy of the 1960s civil rights movement prevent the rise—and now the menacing threat of a return—of a Donald Trump. The lesson is simple. Trafficking in historical fear and nostalgic civil disobedience did not help Hillary Clinton in the US presidential elections in 2016. It did not help Mar Roxas in the Philippine presidential election in the same year. To think it will help Leni Robredo in 2022 is a sentimental but foolhardy, and ultimately counterproductive repolishing of the vanished glory of the 1986 EDSA People Power. It is what it is.

   There’s no denying that right now the bulk of Leni’s supporters are middle-class to upper middle class.  It is the most socially and economically upward-mobile class, one that has the greatest capacity to shape public opinion and excite voter participation. The goal of the Leni Robredo campaign has to be to increase the volume of that base, spilling beyond class divisions and not just to raise its awareness temperature.

   I realize, of course, that preparation-wise, I am Monday-morning-quarterbacking here. The deadline for new voter registration is past.  The success of the Obama campaign was largely due not to its campaign messaging but in effectively bringing out the vote. You must assume that your supporters will vote for you 100%. The true mission, therefore, is to draw the highest turnout possible. US Democrats in state, city and county levels literally went door-to-door in 2015, even escorting youths to voter registration centers a full year before the campaign even started. It makes you shudder to wonder how many of these young animated Leni supporters today actually remembered, or even bothered to register? If they did not register to vote, they can shout themselves hoarse all they want, or storm the digital ramparts of social media but they cannot deliver the only thing they can guarantee Leni: their all-important one vote. 

   It hardly matters now. The fight throughout the remainder of the election period will now be two-pronged: First, to ensure that the vote of the Leni Robredo base is brought out on election day. No more expansion is possible here.  Second,   to make the best effort to turn the biggest possible number of antagonistic voters around. Any expansion is possible only here.

   This is not something you can accomplish by preaching to the choir.  That doesn’t  teach the choir any new songs, it just enables them to sing louder. But noise alone will not win the campaign. The most clever memes on Facebook will not reach the rural yokels who don’t even own a cellphone or have even heard of the internet.

   Fortunately, the Leni Robredo campaign has one thing going for them: Leni Robredo.  All they have to do is just let her talk. Her launching speech is a veritable clinic on how to message correctly: clear, concise, conscienticizing but not condemning and most of all credible.

   If any single dominant group of supporters tries to interfere with her honest messaging, to brand her more sharply or to add fire to her belly, they will rue the day when they realize that all they helped her accomplish is to  snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.*** © 2021 Joel R. Dizon

NOTE FROM JOEL: Hi, folks! Recently, I started a YouTube channel which is called "Parables and Reason" It  is kind of similar to this blog content-wise. You can check out my channel by clicking the link below:

 Joel R. Dizon - PARABLES AND REASON