Racketeers’ paradise

For some time now a friend has been inviting me and two other editors to her home province. We’ve always declined the invitation, mainly because we can’t go on leave all at the same time. But we tell her that it’s also because we don’t want to be caught in the crossfire if anyone assassinates her.

It’s not a complete joke. Our friend belongs to a political clan, and three of her close relatives were assassinated in separate attacks over the past two decades, with members of a rival political family as the principal suspects.

She once sought an elective post. The family fielded her instead of her brother in the belief that even warlords would think twice about ordering a hit on a woman. She was trounced at the polls, but at least she survived the election unharmed.

The woman told us it was more expensive to buy a mid-priced brand-new car than to hire an assassin in her province, one of the country’s most impoverished.

It can cost millions more to buy the silence of the gunman in case he is caught. The payment should be deemed sufficient to cover the expenses of the gunman’s family while he is behind bars – which could be for a lifetime.

In the case of the murder of Ako Bicol party-list congressman Rodel Batocabe, it looks like the confessed triggerman not only didn’t get paid enough, he got cheated out of his share of the payment, which police placed at P5 million for all those involved.

And if a hired gun doesn’t get paid, he should start suspecting that he himself would eventually be permanently silenced.

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We’re not yet a narco state. Based on police operations and intel, it looks like narco politicians are still in the minority. So far, they have confined their illegal activities to local turfs and aren’t going national.

But with all the contract killings being carried out for control over political power and its perks (both legit and illegal), we’re turning into a racketeering state, a gangster’s paradise – if we haven’t turned into one already.

The story of Batocabe would make a good movie. One of the suspects said the plot to eliminate the congressman permanently was hatched in August last year, as soon as he announced plans to challenge Daraga Mayor Carlwyn Baldo, who is seeking election in May. Also running for mayor is the vice mayor; he’s still alive.

Emerging details about the assassination show a politician and his bodyguards behaving not like officials on the public payroll but like Italian mobsters or the South American drug lords and their sicarios.

A police intelligence officer alleged that Baldo not only plotted the assassination of Batocabe, but also planned to kill the mayor of Daraga, Gerry Jaucian, when Baldo was the vice mayor. The same team that carried out the hit on Batocabe would have been used on Jaucian, for a fee of P350,000, the intelligence officer said. Jaucian, however, died in May last year of lung cancer, and Baldo finally assumed the mayor’s post.

And then Batocabe came along to challenge the post, with better name recall than Baldo, but with a weaker security detail.

A political warlord normally can count on the silence of bodyguards when contract killings are carried out. It could have something to do with the P50-million bounty that all six suspects other than Baldo who have been arrested or surrendered are all pointing to the mayor as the mastermind.

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You have to wonder why politicians are willing to resort to murder to win an elective post with relatively modest pay and a term of three years, requiring hands-on management practically around the clock with no day off.

I know honest and competent individuals who have refused to enter politics, even if they know that public office can allow them to do a lot of good for the people. They don’t have money, they tell me, to bankroll a decent campaign, and then to pay for the “KBL” or kasal, binyag, libing (wedding, baptism, funeral) of their constituents. They tell me they can serve the nation in their own way, in their chosen professions.

For the unscrupulous, however, politics can be richly rewarding. Once installed in office, for example, a lawmaker, governor or mayor can buy up cheap, undeveloped, inaccessible tracts of land in his turf. Then he will move for the development of the area into a commercial, industrial or tourism zone, using taxpayers’ money to install roads and all the necessary infrastructure that will turn his property into prime real estate, with the value soaring 100-fold or more.

Vast family fortunes have been built on such schemes. Across the country, many provinces, cities and towns have such privileged clans that have been hugely successful in marrying politics and private businesses.

Three years, of course, cannot be enough to complete such projects. If the politician loses power and, worse, is replaced by an opponent, the project could be aborted.

So keeping the clan’s hold on power beyond constitutional term limits is paramount. If it calls for murder, why not?

The Ampatuans, whose conviction is imminent and looks certain, are accused of ordering the massacre of 58 people just because someone dared to challenge their decade-long control over Maguindanao, one of the poorest provinces.

If the arrested bodyguards of Carlwyn Baldo are telling the truth, how many politicians have the same mindset as the mayor of Daraga?

The certainty that he’s not alone – and that many will be elected in May – is chilling.