A Political Way of Courtship

Based on ethnographic research, it is not the market exchange model of vote buying that defines vote buying in the rural
community of Salugsog but rather, it is the cultural model of alliance systems. Alliance system is a system formed for the advancement
of a candidate from his competitor and it mostly relies on the commitment of the villagers who engage in highly personalized
communication strategies to get the voters support a specific candidate. Such villagers or the brokers secure votes during campaigns
through buying an electoral vote in promise of a material goods and services to the needy (e.g supporting the hospitalization, exchange
of money). Nonetheless, the exchange considered being the case of hope and risk. Hope, in the context of when the candidate wins,
benefits will accrue to the alliance and the community. The risk part here is the 50-50 chance. If the candidate loses the election,
benefits will only serve to the winning candidate’s alliance, and the losing candidate’s alliance will serve no purpose and benefits. In line
with vote-buying, people also had different views on the meanings of giving and receiving money in which some answered that the
acceptance of money does not mean the selling of one’s vote, while for some, it is indeed vote buying. It hinders their right to have
proper assistance in the future as well as their freedom to choose.

The relevance of the Market Exchange Model in analyzing vote-buying in Philippine politics is that it explains how the Filipinos,
especially the desperate and destitute people how they sell their freedom in terms of vote-buying. Its relevance in Philippine politics
also is it aims to show how the politicians distribute money and goods to market the votes of the poor people. This model aims to
elaborate on how the poor people in society receive the goods and cash that politician’s hand to them. Another relevance of the model
is that it provides situations in which the people in the society show how they decide to receive and react to the vote-buying scheme.
Vote buying is more comfortable to analyze using the market exchange model because this model is understood as marketing people
or encouraging people to join the alliance in exchange for money. It is also basically the way how the politicians, through their brokers,
give out cash to people to vote for their alliance. It is also relevant because it provides numbers and percentages as to how the people
appreciated the vote-buying in politics. The roles of Political brokers in Philippine politics are that they were the one who helps the
politician’s campaign for their name and to help them get more people to join their alliances. It was also defined in the article that there
are three types of brokers and their roles – the activists brokers who support a candidate based on political commitment and others, the
clientelist brokers that desire long term relations to receive presents in the future and lastly the opportunist brokers who presume short
term material and get an income from it. Brokers also anticipated their roles as they are already politically obligated to accompany and
promote their political candidates in society. For the ad hoc alliance system, the role of this in Philippine politics is that this serves as an
organization wherein the brokers will visit the society and hand out money for people as a reward and note as buying their votes for
officially joining the alliance of the opposing candidates. The effect of extreme personalism of local politics is that the brokers go
beyond the limit to attain a higher liability? Of vote seller’s compliance, in which the brokers act as a watcher to remind the people of
the agreement they had in terms of the politicians that they have agreed to vote for. The relationship of electoral personalism and
political network structure is that they somehow revolve in similar meaning, which is the organization, which is for the political network.
It is a more self – organized and electoral personalism as a whole organization of parties. The effectiveness of the current election laws
in the Philippines is not that effective because the rule of law and the notion that no one is above the law is fundamental to a healthy
democracy. If we accept a world of bribery and out-and-out vote buying, we might as well accept a world where money is above the
welfare of the people and the community.
The problems we faced today are not the result of the individual failings. What we face is a system that is compromised by the
perception that Philippine public policy is a marketable commodity. That is why our group suggests legitimate ways on how to address
the problems mentioned in the article.

 We should pass a law that prohibits family members of legislators or any politicians to become lobbyists.
 The Philippine government especially the LGU’s, needs to get out of the business of offering grants. Don’t let public officials
running for a position in a public office pick grantee of such opportunities based on who they’re friends/relatives are.
 PDAF that the congress receive should be disallowed. Tax payer money should not be used as a resource to win an electoral
position.
In our observation, different problems and practices arises during election period. One of the practices that is very prevalent
and very evident during this period is vote-buying. If we see to it, vote-buying came from the desire of a politician to win a position in an
election then apparently it became a habit making it part of human culture. After analyzing the article, in our very own environment,
vote-buying is very prevalent during local elections and mostly of their targets are the people that they that have a strong support for
them. In one of the observations from our groupmate, she explained that vote-buying in their municipality mostly occur to lure
somebody and gain their trust to change their chosen candidate from this party to their party. She also explained that vote-buying is like
you’re in an auction where there is bidding because some people support the candidate who gives more. Moreover, vote-buying can
come in any form not just only but from a story heard from before, there is a certain place in Pangasinan where a politician and his
members handed, house-to-house, some goods like noodles and a tray of eggs. There was also an instance wherein a family member
of our one groupmate have received money and voted the candidates who gave it to her for the reason that she doesn’t know them –
from their platforms, what they’ve done, or what they look like. To mention it again, vote-buying is already a culture. Vote-buying is
reality therefore, it is already inevitable. So, to speak, it is but sad and disappointing to say, politicians have made politics a business
wherein they make bets and invest in people.