Greed nearly cost the life of a Liga voter

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

As the election of the presidency of the Liga ng mga Barangay (the former Association of Barangay Council (ABC) is forthcoming in July 30 as mandated by law,  many moneyed candidates for ex –officio position of a provincial board member have been busily meeting ABC Presidents of towns and cities in some concealed restaurants for some preliminaries. 

Here P50,000 beer monies in the enveloped were surreptitiously sneaked to the hands of voters before the final hundreds of thousands if not a million pesos will be offered to a position that gives only almost one hundred thousand pesos monthly, son of a gun!

A friend told me that this practice in the country of buying those towns and cities' presidents of the Liga is incredible and insane.

“It’s insane for you, but for the moneyed bets, they called it prestige for that elusive title of being called “The Honorable Board Member Juan or Juana Ramanam Amin,” I told him.

A mayor told me that in a hypothetical one million pesos vote buy, there should be another five hundred thousand pesos for the mayor of each towns or cities that participated in the poll.

He explained that the ABC president will not vote for the bet of the Liga President in the Province without the imprimatur of the mayor who will be his patron for his protection and generosity for the next three years in that local government unit.

“ABC president out of fear or respect seeks the guidance of the mayor,” he told me.

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A mayor of a first class town recounted a betrayal because of greed that nearly cost the life of a village chief in the election of the presidency of the Liga ng Barangay (LnB).

“I was a barangay captain then and we were allied with a punong barangay who oversaw the operation of illegal number game (jueteng). He wanted to be the president of the Association of Barangay Council, the precursor of the LnB. We got 17 kapitans while another powerful kapitan who ran a private armed group had 18 kapitans,” the mayor, who was a long reigning village chief, said in Tagalog.

The election was held in the early year 2000 and the price per voter, the mayor cited, was for each of the 18 allied village chiefs P5000 and a Nokia cellular phone 3110.

“The money given and the cellphone were already valuable and expensive then,” he disclosed.

Before these captive village chiefs started to vote at the office of the Department of Interior & Local Government, the body mandated by law for the poll, they were dined, wined, and even given women to satisfy their sexuality at some concealed resorts where their mobile phones were confiscated for the moment to avoid being pirated by the other camp that offer a much higher sum.

“The result of the election was 18 kaps for us and 17 kaps for the other rival. Nag magic ha ha ha!”the mayor chuckled.

Upon discovery who was the village chief who betrayed him, the toughie bet wanted him killed.

Many village chiefs in this country were murdered because of their two faceted stances by getting both the bribes from their patron and the rival and voted for those who bid the highest monetarial consideration dangled to them without even the propriety of returning the sum and the valuable given by the losing rival, the mayor cited. 

READ MY OTHER ARTICLE:

Lessons Filipinos could learn from the US election

(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)