Half-a-Billion Pesos Needed to Win this Cong. Post

 

                                A MERE P300,000 MONTHLY PAYING JOB

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

 Several media practitioners including those who do public relation jobs with politicians and government high brass from a Cabinet Secretary, Congressmen, and Mayors once in a while visit me at the house for a tête-à-tête and get my political analysis particularly, over bottle of beers or brewed coffee from McDonald, how their benefactors fare.

When one of them appeared at the gate of our house, I blurted out: 

"Oh talo kayo sa troll wars, inaaraw araw kayo ng kalaban habang dalawang buwan na kayo na tahimik!"

He pooh poohed my observation. He said his boss knows who are those pesky trolls. 

"Watch as election period comes near,' he sheepishly smiled.

After exchanging notes about some politicians who are real friends of media men, those who just use us, and how media men use them too hahaha in my mammoth province where some reporters’ loyalty depend on how a pulitiko dangles the weight of the gold, electoral equations in some congressional districts and Dagupan City, fellow reporters who reel on the economic repercussion of the pandemic, and Cyber Libel Law, he asked me:

DOES MY PATRON HAS A CHANCE TO DEFEAT IN THE COMING ELECTION A RE-ELECTIVE CONGRESSMAN?

WHEREWITHAL. Hundreds of millions of pesos being prepared for vote buying in the Philippines to win a congressional post that gives almost P300 Thousand a month pay in a three years term.

I told him as long as the people of the District can be bought just like in some cities and towns in the Philippines, he has a chance to win a three hundred thousand pesos monthly legally paying job but it would be a Pyrrhic victory because the opponent has the wherewithal too to buy votes to ingratiate with the voters.

“Kung hindi nabibili ang mga botante talo kayo gaya sa padamihan ng reporters talo kayo ngayon hahaha galante sila sa mga reporters nila’

Pyrrhic victory - to the tricycle drivers, kargadors, and the pedestrians who sneak peek in this Op-Ed article - means a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat..

“Mga ilan ang botante ng Distrito?’ I asked him.

“More or less 350, 000”.

"Kung kukuha kayo ng 80 percent for vote buying ilan iyan?"

“280,000!”

Pero mag ti three waves kayo a month before the election panghimagas, mamigay kayo ng P300 , magkano iyan?

“P84 Million!”

“A week before the election P500, the night before election sa pakurong P1,000 magkano lahat ng gagastusin niya sa vote buying kasama na iyong unang P300 per voter?”

We both mentally calculated but he beat me as a fast drawer in the counting game, the guy according to his father a Magna cum laude, while I got pathetically ‘pasang awa” 76% and 78% in high school and college Math sanamagan!

“Its P504 million o mahigit kalahating bilyon pesos!” he said.

Kung six years na Congressman ang kalaban ninyo, may naipon siyang 10 % sa S.O.P, euphemism of a cut for election and personal purposes of a solon from contractors in a billion pesos’ average’s government projects a year in his District, magkano ang ipon niya pambili ng boto?

We both mentally calculated again how much and this time I beat him because I was counting ten percent of one billion and it was so easy hahahaha!

“P600 million! 10% of P1 billion is P100 million multiplied by six years or two - term of a solon that’s P600 million baby,” as I quaffed my Red Horse Beer”.

I told him his patron’s opponent is no fluke because he is a sitting Congressman.

I added that those who will benefit in the coming election are the screaming vote- for- sale bakya crowd that composed the bulk of the electorates.

“Babaha na naman ng pera at masaya na naman pati mga tindera dahil madami ang pera ng mga bayarang masa,” I told him poetically just like when I composed the Ilonggo folk -rock song’’s Nang Potang that went viral in Facebook especially in Mindanao that rhyme about the three whores that 'de-Virginized" many teenagers in my town there:

Tulad ni: Manang Potang, Potang Pootang!

Tulad ni: Pintay Pintay sa kamaisan sang panulay

Tulad ni Mora Mora Abdul Aunor sa idalom sang tulay

READ MY OTHER BLOG/COLUMN:

FILIPINO SENATORS FOR SALE

(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)