How a Bet Buy Votes, Win the Barangay Poll

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza

Now that the Barangay (Village) election is few more days to go, I will share the experiences of a Punong Barangay (Village Chairman) bet we will call in fictitious name Philip Dipaawat.

In my almost one hour interview with him, where he asked for anonymity, he divulged the illegitimate ugly sides of winning the vulnerable and susceptible hearts and minds of the voters in his and his opponents determination to win the coveted post in Barangay Nababayaran somewhere in the urban area of Northern Luzon.

In 2007 Barangay Election, Barangay Nababayaran had 8,000 voters.

ME: How many of you aspired for the position of Kapitan (Spanish term of village chief that was termed as Kapitan del Barrio before)?

DIPAAWAT: Five of us, but the two were spent force. My two tough opponents were a rich matron looking businesswoman and the junkie (narcotics dependent) looking son of the Kapitan.

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He explained that even he tangled with the son of the long reigning undefeated Kapitan whose term ended in that year that contest was considered between him and the bowing out Punong Barangay Roberto Dimagiba.

ME: How much was your budget against your two rivals?

DIPAAWAT: I have closed to P700 thousand while si matronang Martha exceeded my P700, 000 by preparing P1 million. Restituto Sagupa Dimagiba V, the son of the Kapitan, because of overconfidence had only a campaingn kitty of between P300, 000 to P400, 000.

ME: Did the three of you resort to vote buying? How many waves you employed to give dole outs and monies?

DIPAAWAT: Both I and Mataba compete in buying votes. Martha’s leaders exceeded their dole-outs compared to mine to the voters.

Dipaawat explained that at the middle part of the nine days campaign period he gave P200 to his 120 leaders who were his sympathizers, supporters, and those voters who were with the rivals.

“Five days before bigay na ako ng grocery bag na tig P100. Laman niya one kilo na bigas, two noodles and one can of sardine (Five days before I gave dole-out of grocery bag worth P100. It was composed of kilo of rice, two packs of noodle, and one small can of sardine),” he stressed.

He said in the third wave a day before the election, he gave the same amount and items of grocery bag plus P200 per voter.

“During that year the sum I gave was already pricey before the eyes of the poor,” he quipped when I retorted that the amount was measly.

He said he got about 500 lead votes versus Martha Mataba while Restituto Sagupa Dimagiba V was a cellar dweller.

“Nasa puwitan si Resty, naligo ng alikabok sa boto na nakuha namin ni Aling Martha na matrona!”

He told me that winning an election does not depend on the hundreds of thousands or million of pesos one can buy through money and dole out.

He cited victory for the top post was a long process of transformation that took a decade or more where a bet built first a positive image before the eyes of the electorates.

“It was not an overnight affair”.

He said it was a transfiguration through ingratiation with the people.

He cited that before winning the chairmanship of Barangay Nababayaran, he was the chair of the Sanguniang Kabataan for how many years, five years as kagawad (council member), and was helping the poor by giving them sum whenever their love ones were hospitalized.

“Walang patawad itong mga mahirap, pati kuryente nila,pinapasagot pa sa akin. Pero masaya ako. Sa tanang buhay ko halos nasa pulitika na ako!” he quipped.

One of his assets that catapulted him to the village top executive post, he said, was being the alumnus of the village highschool.

 “I was a graduate of our barangay highschool where 3,000 loyal and loving alumni have been my captive voters already”.

Did you and your opponents resort to the dreaded Three Gs or Guns, Gold, and Goons as advantage in the 2010 and 2013 village elections?

His heart wrenching and nerve wracking answers will be on the Second Series of this article as we beat the countdowns for the May 14, 2018 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Election (BSKE).

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Barangay Nabayaran is one of the huge villages in Northern Luzon. The Punong Barangay Philip Dipaawat  during his term in 2010 to 2013 received a monthly pay of P24,000 while his seven council members and the ex-officio Sangguniang Kabataan Chairman got P8,000.00 each.

“Pinaka malaki na iyan na pasueldo sa barangay officials kahit thankless jobs ang designacion namin”.

 He stressed that even during the wee hours indigents still knocked at his door to ask for financial assistance.

“Even media men dropped by at my office. They were happy because every time they leave my secretary sees to it that they received P300 bills where he put the sum in the envelope”.

He asked that reporters could drop by at the makeshift restaurant near the barangay hall and nourished themselves with a free meal before they go to his office.

“Pagkain na, may sobre pa, may inum pa!” he quipped.

During that time,  the average customary dole out of a congressman, city mayor, and other first class town mayor to a respected but susceptible media man was P2000, P1000, and P500, respectively, every time he or she visited the offices of these public servants.

The P300 was quite hefty since it came from a barangay chairman whose illegal number game jueteng's payola was minuscule compared to those received by the governor, board members, mayor, vice mayor, police provincial, city, and municipal chiefs that ran to hundreds of thousands if not countless of millions of pesos a month.

Kapitan (old title of a village chief) said he received P30, 000 only monthly from the maintainer's of the illegal number game during his stint.

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A media man jocularly told him that his generosity during his administration in doling out sums to people can be likened to a 5^th class town mayor in Luzon.

The election in 2010-2013, he said, was the toughest in the last three village polls he participated.

Former Barangay Chairman Roberto Dimagiba made a comeback and was determined to reclaim his position through the help of the sitting mayor.

ME: How many of you aspired in that election?

DIPAAWAT: Three

ME: How much was you and your opponents’ budgets?

He said his budget was P1 million while former Kapitan Dimagiba and Ricardo Menardo have P500, 000 each.

Dipaawat said that he just emulated his strategies in 2007-2010 poll to buy votes when he and Restituto Sagupa Dimagiba,  the son of Dimagiba, tangled.

In that 2007 exercise Dipaawat resorted to give P200 to his 120 leaders who identified who were his sympathizers, supporters, and those voters and leaders who were with the rivals.

Some days before the casting of votes, Dipaawat narrated, his leaders were roving the village’s sitios and households where they gave grocery bag composed of a kilo of rice, two noodles, a can of sardine, and pamphlets where his ticket and those of the ticket of the Samahang Kabataan's candidates he endorsed were printed.

But he had a nerve wracking experience before he and his leaders could start buying votes at P250 per voter.

He did not reach the third wave where his almost P1 million campaign kitty would be used to buy votes because of the incident that happened to him and his supporters the night before the casting of votes.

 He cited the police had destroyed his will to fund the third wave.

The reason for his demoralization: The mayor coached the former chairman to bribe the driver of the incumbent Kapitan to drive out his pick-up car in the wee hour.

“The mayor was a shrewd politician as based on his personal experiences. In the past election he was behind in popularity when he challenged the incumbent mayor. He explained that because of machination and drama the challenger created and immediately snapped and played by the media the sitting mayor lost his reelection.

“During the start of the (barangay) election, the mayor pledge to his supporters that all the villages that supported his pet-peeve vice mayor would lost in the poll,” Dipaawat cited.

“Kap, pagasulinahan natin ito mamaya. Problema pa natin iyan baka maubusan tayo ng gasolina pag umikot tayo,” his driver, who was in cahoots with Dimagiba, told him.

He said another two of his unwitting aides accompanied the corrupt driver.

After the clock hit midnight, the car was cruising to the gasoline station in the village but was immediately flagged down by policemen manning a newly installed check point.

The trio was ordered to disembark and frisk while their vehicle was searched and was found out to have rifles without license.

 At 2 o’clock in the following early morning he and his lawyer were at the police station arguing with the chief of police that the guns were “planted” where the police could not even produce the guns.

But it was not the concern for the moment of the police and probably the mayor and his rival. What was in their mind was the hype the apprehension of his men and seizing of their set up rifles could bring as a huge news in that day’s prime time television and radio.

What aggravated the destruction of his integrity and the plunged of his popularity before the voters who go to the precincts to exercise their rights of suffrage on that day was the series of pronouncements of the Election Officer of the Commission on Election to the media that he was already damaged and would be subjected to criminal charges and jail time even if he wins the election.

“Masakit. Ang Election Officer interviewed at the behest of the mayor. He said mabigat itong kaso ni Kapitan kahit na manalo siya, paulit ulit pang sinabi iyon, hindi rin siya makakatapos dahil pa file din siya ng kaso,” he recalled.

He lost 500 votes among the 8,000 voters of the village to the come backing kapitan, thanks to the astute interference of the mayor.

Dipaawat has an advice to incumbent candidates and those challengers who have all the resources to defeat their opponents:

“Don’t belittle your weak opponent, he could make surprises”.

He lost in that election he blamed on Murphy’s Law.

Murphy Law is an adage or epigram that states "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong".

READ: How a P5M funds transformed an SK Prexy into a BM

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Even cousins have been alienated with each other in the 2013 barangay (village) election in Barangay Nabayaran somewhere in Luzon.

In the 8,000 vote - rich Barangay, former village chairperson Philip Crisostomo Dipaawat blamed Restituto Crisostomo Torrero for his second narrow votes defeat by incumbent Kapitan Roberto Dimagiba when he got 2,500 votes versus Dimagiba’s 2,900 votes.

He cited that in that electoral exercise he got P2 million he chipped in with his parent and kin while cousin Torrero, Mayor’s pet bet Gerry Dakuykoy, and reelectionist Kapitan (chairman) Dimagiba had P3 million, P1 million, and P1million, respectively.

Dimagiba said that in the second wave of the vote buying spree he and his leaders were doling out P200 per voter while his cousin and the chairman gave P300 to win the loyalty of each of the vulnerable voters.

But his P2 million did not salvage his previous loss to Dimagiba and did not do justice to reclaim his old post he lost to the present kapitan in 2010 because of his cousin.

“Itong si Torrero ang masakit kasi second degree cousin ko  ito. Ang lolo namin magkapatid. Kasi lolo nito dating barangay captain. Ang rason niya gusto niyang sundan ang yapak ng lolo niya,” he stressed.

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Dipaawat said two months before the October 28, 2013 election the clan had an assembly to elect who would be their standard bearer.

“Tinalo ko siya. Nag concedes and then nag pledged ng support and he encouraged his family to support me”.

But the supposed pledged of support was only for a week as Torrero was seen giving monies to his house callers.

“He wanted to run for Kap, too,” Dipaawat sadly said.

He cited the clan became divided because of the village race.

“Grabe, grabe, grabe masakit ito. Nag away  away ang pamilya diyan ang nanay ko  at ang nanay niya”.

Dipaawat said their clan is the richest clan in Nabayaran.

 He said that both of them cousins compete ingratiating with the voters in the numbers of the recipients of their monies.

That poll saw Dimagiba, Dakuykoy, and Dipaawat in a tight contest won by Dimagiba.

“Maliit lang ang gap namin ni Dimagiba mga almost 400 votes”.

A supporter of Dipaawat said that with the more than 1,000 votes garnered by Torrero, his non-presence in the poll would mean a Dipaawat victory.

He said that during the stumps, Torio mercilessly attacked him in his speeches and not the present Kapitan who is his fraternity brother.

“We suspected that Dimagiba convinced him to run against me to divide the votes of our clan”.

Despite the scar left by the last election, Dipaawat did not care how Torrero and his kin estimated at him.

When asked if he and his opponents commissioned goons to strike fears in the minds of their supporters and voters, Dipaawat said:

“Dimagiba have goons from Central Pangasinan and Abra. He hired a known killer a former policeman who came from Ilocos”.

I got my own goons while Dacuycuy had the police because he was supported by the mayor.

“Iyong pinsan ko walang goons pero may P3 million pang bili ng boto”.

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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)