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Beaten

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Eight months ago, I had convinced myself that this elections would simply be a formality and that the administration candidate would win.

After all, they had everything in place. Aside from having all three branches of government in the palm of his hand, President Rodrigo Duterte had by then also appointed all of the commissioners of the Commission on Elections.

For a while, there was no essentially no opposition party and even if there was, it had absolutely no machinery and funds to advance their interests or chances of winning an election. It certainly didn’t have the support that came with being in control of government funds and resources.

Even when VP Leni Robredo decided to throw her hat into the ring, my cynical mind couldn’t imagine how she could possibly put up a decent fight against the deep pockets of her well-entrenched opponents. I appreciated her balls, but I thought it would be an almost impossible dream.

I guess my imagination wasn’t as big as Leni and her team’s because over the past few months, the country witnessed how they were able to mount one of the most amazing and inspiring campaigns this country has ever seen. Leni, who started the campaign with a handful of supporters and no guaranteed funds, ended the campaign period that turned into a series of mammoth-sized rallies all over the country and culminated with a star-studded miting de avance attended by more than 1 million hopeful and pink-clad supporters.

That massive volunteer-driven campaign gave many of us hope that the system could still be changed. Even the cynical me, who had given up hope on the elections, started to think there was a chance. After seeing all the people, all the endorsements, and the effort of all the volunteers who even went on an unprecedented nationwide house to house campaign, it felt like this new brand of leadership could upend traditional politics and its dirty methods that have been used to secure power in this country for decades.

Caught up in the feel-good echo chamber where time, talents and resources were freely given by thousands who believed in a common cause, we forgot what she was fighting against and how they ultimately play the game, which is with a different set of rules.

Leni and her pink crusade soldiered on, hoping that her presence and perseverance would change hearts and minds. I believe she was the only candidate to have visited every province in the country. She was like the Energizer Bunny on steroids, obviously working more than 18 hours a day throughout the entire campaign period.

However, despite all that, VP Leni still lost the elections badly, according to the partial and unofficial results coming from Comelec servers. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. got more than 30 million votes while she got less than 15 million only.

The electoral spanking that the pink crusade got seemed unbelievable at first blush, especially if you see the crowds at her rallies and the H2H campaigns that she inspired. The first reaction of any observer is to fear that the VCMs were tampered or hacked and the elections were somehow cheated.

But as I processed my grief (you can see that I’m very close to the acceptance stage by now), I began to remember by initial assumptions and cynicism as far as these elections are concerned.

In fairness to our voting machines, I don’t think there was cheating on the VCM level. My theory with regards to cheating is what was carried out was the more traditional type: massive vote buying.

If you come to think of it, the only reason that could explain such a big lead was that there had to be a massive advantage that was exploited. If we eliminate the VCMs, the part of the pink crusade that had zero experience and resources is also the way most elections in this country had always been won or lost: vote buying.

When the UniTeam party said they had the “support” of a huge percentage of the country’s local officials, what we should’ve understood was that they will be included in the vote buying operations.

The lesson this massive defeat of the pink party has imparted upon my re-cynicalized mind is that no matter how much lugaw, pandesal, taho, ice cream or cupcakes were given during rallies, no matter how many ballers, arm sleeves, aprons, stickers or posters were given during H2H efforts; all those were no match for the billions in cash attached to millions of sample ballots given away on or before Election Day.

One 2022 Election lesson for me is that the Filipino voter is still for sale. As long as the Comelec and our public officials are content with turning a blind eye to massive and wholesale vote buying, it looks like the opposition is in the next elections has no choice but to fight fire with fire.

The next time an unlikely-massively-volunteer-driven movement is mobilized, its volunteers may have to hold off giving away party favors and save that money for a massive volunteer-based vote buying operation instead. Of course, without the luxury of plundered funds they will probably be outspent by those who have access to ill-gotten wealth, but stooping to that level might be the only way to have a fighting chance.

It’s not pretty, it’s actually disgusting and probably goes against all the feel-good vibes of any volunteer-centered movement hungry for change, but after this sobering defeat, they have to face the reality of just how messed up the system remains in this country.

They used to say that there are no losers in the Philippines, only those who were cheated. The truth is: until the system is somehow fixed, election losers in this country are those who cheat less than the winner.*

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