More cleaning up

and motorcycles!

The UK and US legislative reforms were ways to decrease acts of vote buying and selling in these countries.

Some years from there, the new democracies, like in Asia, would have the same problems, in addition to other forms of electoral frauds. In the two countries, economic growth (and industrialization) eventually made votebuying and offers of voting boycotts costly and futile.

In the Philippines, the result of 2013 elections as a whole shows change in the political picture of Cebu. The look of winners is a change, like the defeat of dynasties and the victory of newbies. A businessman inventor will lead the city of Talisay, for one.

Even the way the PCOS machine worked and didn’t work are changes in our relation with, and full knowledge, of the system which could affect the fate of the nation as a whole.

What hasn’t changed is the vote selling and vote buying. In fact, it looks like it’s gone on more widely throughout the country.

Marissa, a young mother newly arrived in a kasambahay work in Cebu city, asked permis- sion from her mistress to meet her sister at the bus terminal a day after election. Her sister, living in a faraway sitio in Balamban and registered there, was coming to the city for a couple of days of a happy trip to visit the malls using the vote money she got from a local candidate. Marissa would also get a share of the vote-money from the sibling as a gift.

The news leaping across precincts in the country in the past few days was mostly about someone here and there caught vote buying.

Some other problematic incidents include a candidate in Pagadian city caught on camera in his office beside a table filled with envelopes containing P1,000 each. .

In a 1995 study of the Filipino voter, findings showed that popularity and public image get votes, also candidates with the support and approval of organizations, as well as candidates from whom a voter can personally depend on for personal needs.

A voter could make more money in our election system because there are more than two political parties, even independent candidates could knock on your door for the sale of votes. The last thing a voter probably thinks of, as seen in the survey results, is the party program

This is probably where the Church and other concerned organizations could come in to help heal the value crisis we’ve been undergoing throughout election periods. The problem would probably need the touch of work groups taking efforts in teaching faith in clean elections.

(ecuizon@gmail.com) Sun.Star Cebu