The political game

Campaign season for candidates for national elections has begun. Our politicians have to contend with the restrictions that come in the wake of the COVID-19 virus. Only 50 percent of the 110 million Filipinos have been double-vaccinated for this virus, still 30 percent off the 80 percent mark needed for the “new normal” to descend back to our land.

But trust our politicians to campaign, and well they must, if they want to secure the positions which have been the objects of their moist gazes. I have done some campaigning since 1986, when I joined the volunteers who worked for the Cory Aquino-Doy Laurel team that fought a David-like campaign against the Goliath of the Marcos dictatorship. I gave flyers to jeepney drivers and passengers on Quezon Avenue every weekend, so I stood near the traffic lights and swooped down on the jeepneys when the light turned red.

That is one campaign strategy that still needs to be done today. I am aware of the wide and sweeping influence of social media, that is why our candidates have invested in people who produce content for their Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Tiktok accounts. But you still need real people to bring your message to the so-called common people. Many of them have no time to look at their social-media accounts. There is no interaction; no messages come their way. Moreover, they have no time to post on Facebook, craft 280 words for Twitter, shoot a video for YouTube, post a photo for Instagram or sing and dance their way to Tiktok fandom because of lack of time. The only time they have, they focus on work that would bring food on the table.

That is why the personal touch is still important: people giving them flyers, or talking to them in a calm and collected manner. No promises of the fake Tallano gold, please, like what my friend heard on the beach upon coming out of the sea in San Remigio, Cebu, last November.

Or the candidates themselves barnstorming the land. For this, they need a lot of logistics and teamwork. Advance parties must be sent, complete with banners and tarpaulins commissioned in the place of the campaign. These banners and tarpaulins must be hung on the path of the candidate’s motorcade, and some of them given to the people to hold while the candidates pass.

And for this, we also need energy and hygiene. I laughed a lot when I saw the huge motorcade of one presidential candidate. He and his candidates stood on an open-air truck, but they were surrounded by men in the campaign color, and they moved slowly as the crowd watched outside the cordon sanitaire provided by the security group.

I think that destroys the point of a barnstorm, which is to touch as many hands as the candidate could. Just to touch a hand, or see him or her from near or even from afar, while perched on a balcony or holding on to the branches of a tree, are enough to make the voters happy. They have been honored with a visit, but the energy should come from the spontaneity of the crowd, not from the sight of a motorcade moving as if it were the cortege of a funeral.

Hygiene we also need. The internet exploded with photos of one candidate whose hands were being raised in a campaign, but lo and behold, he had wet armpits! There are many brands of underarm deodorants in the market, and if the candidate’s condition is something the deodorant can’t cure, I am sure this rich candidate has enough funds to seek medical help for his condition. Otherwise, the candidate will go down in history as Candidate BasKil (basang kilikili), or Candidate Wet Armpits!

One of my friends is a photographer who used to cover the politics beat and he complained to me about the halitosis of one candidate. So my friend wisely moved away and just took photos with his telephoto lens, to avoid the reek of the sewer emanating from the candidate’s mouth. Again, bad breath could come from rotting teeth or something spicy that you ate. If not, then time also to seek medical advice, to avoid turning off people with the cloud of stink coming from your mouth.

Moreover, the candidates should vet the people they are hiring as consultants. One candidate hired a pretty girl to do PR for his presidential campaign in 2016. She was pretty but she was not one of the sharpest knives in the cabinet. When this candidate lost, Pretty But Dumb jumped the political fence and was appointed to a high position in the present administration. She spewed non-sequiturs that had the media – and the people – laughing and wondering why was she being paid P150,000 a month for all these?

I also worked for another candidate more than a decade ago and one of his consultants, an older man who always came to the campaign office in shiny clothes, asked to meet with me.

“Danton,” he said, “since you are from Bicol, let us now discuss the three provinces of Bicol and our campaign strategies there.”

“Oh, we have five provinces in Bicol: Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, Albay, Sorsogon and Masbate.”

Older Consultant was shocked and asked me: “Since when?”

I was being paid P15,000 to do research for the campaign, touch base with the grassroots and write a weekly report. I am sure Older Consultant with shiny clothes was paid three times, or even more, what I was getting, for being his ignorant self.

Moreover, the candidate should also avoid not just dumb consultants but also thieves. The massive vote-buying happens on the night before election day; the ward leaders operate like bats. They would give sample ballots to the voters, folded in half, with the cash in between. But if the budget was P500 per voter, the war leader would just give P200, pocketing the rest.

Politics is a snake pit, that is why I returned to writing and teaching.