Voters Abuse Mayor’s Kindness As Election Nears

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza

Voters nowadays are exploiting the extra ordinary generosity of politicians as election nears, narrated by a mayor to reporters.

The Pangasinan mayor complained that one recent noontime, he already spent  seventy thousand pesos as dole outs to callers in his office where some even came from the neighboring towns.

“Look, my drawer is almost empty with cash,” he told media men who came for an interview.

VOTE BUYING - Money exchanges hands to favor a candidate during the election campaign period in the Philippines.

The bills he gave were of twenties, fifties, one hundred, five hundred, and one thousand.

Each of the four obviously poor mothers were  given two twenty peso bills.

“Masyadong maliit naman iyong binibigay ni mayor. Parang pamasahi na lang iyon sa tricycle,” one of the reporters quipped.

“Mga pabalik balik lang ang mga iyan kaya binabarat na rin sila ni mayor,” the other retorted.

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The chief executive of the first class town however shelled out P1,500 to one of the three members of the Tricycle Operators and Drivers' Association(TODA) who told him that they will be celebrating the anniversary of their organization.

The mayor gave two thousand pesos to five teenagers who solicited for a set of basketball uniforms in an upcoming competition in a fiesta of their village.

“Malaki iyong binigay ni mayor kasi maraming botante iyong mga players,” a scribe quipped.

The mayor generosity is fueled probably by his rival who has more money to spend in the campaign period of the May 13, 2019 polls.

"Iyong kalaban kahit P1,000 per voter kayang bumili ng boto. Hindi ko alam kung kakayanin ni mayor ang presyo ng rival sa mga bobotante," a radio announcer commented.

Elected officials in towns and cities in various provinces in Northern Luzon have a hard time because President Rodrigo Duterte stamped out the proliferation of illegal number game jueteng in favor of the legitimate Small Time Lottery (STL) that earned P26,103,422,348.39 gross sales in 2018 compared to the P4.7 billion in 2016 when jueteng rampaged during the first semester of the year when the country was still ran by then president Benigno Aquino III.

During the height of the illegal number game a mayor of a huge city in Pangasinan received P1.5 million a month from the gambling operator while his chief of police got P600, 000 monthly, according to a former councilor who is now the election campaign manager of the mayor.

“The monies I was giving to the my constituents who seek help in my office came already from my pocket. Mayors like me identified with the provincial power are no longer beneficiary of some financial shares from the legal number game,” a mayor in the Second Congressional District said.

Of course reporters who were around just played it by ear because they know that mayor like him still has a cut or  the anomalous S.O.P given by contractors and suppliers of government projects intended to the local government unit and he received shares from perya operators that front for illegal gambling that proliferate not only his town but other local government units.

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