Shameless Vote Buying Tricks

There is this video by GMA News that is so appalling and disgusting regarding a grocery gift card supposedly coming from a supermarket owned by defeated congressional candidate Benjie Lim. In it we see throngs of upset and disappointed people that turn out in droves wanting to get their “freebies” or electoral bribe to exercise their right of “suffrage”. It was so pathetic seeing people react in dismay for their “wasted time and effort” upon learning that the supermarket is not honoring the gift certificate that turned out to be a certifiFAKE.

We have indeed reached an all time low, throngs of people scrambling like vultures disappointed at not being able to consummate a criminal act is really disgusting. Lim the owner claims it was a dirty trick coming from his political opponent de Venecia. While de Venecia who is visibly upset said he cannot do such lowball tactics being an honorable speaker of the house. Uhuh, I am sorry Mr. Speaker but you need to come up with a more “convincing” excuse especially when politicians who occupy even the highest position of the land are accused of cheating and other horrible brazen acts.

This is like watching a TV reality police show conducting a sting operation the only difference is not one is getting arrested or investigated because as the reporter said Tongelec needs “evidence” or “affidavit” or “formal complaint” to initiate any court procedure. Evidence my foot, it was televised for all to see don’t you think that alone merits an investigation?

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Benjie Lim indeed faced a formidable opponent wherein he cited vote buying and dirty tricks in his lamentations in an allege email coming from Lim spreading around the internet. I have decided to just post the entire email and let people decide for themselves if indeed there is basis for such allegations:

How much did JDV spend to win?

Dear Friends,

With deep gratitude, thank you for your most valued support.

Unlike the people of Pampanga, the people of Pangasinan's fourth district succumbed to the temptations of temporary relief and the avalanche of money that came their way in the last 48 hours including election day. An average JDV voter received at least a maximum of P3,000 and a minimum of P500, something that was beyond their wildest dreams.

Based on the estimates of our political strategists, JDV must have spent a minimum of half a billion pesos just to ensure his hold on to his congressional seat. This is one good case study for political scholars and advocates of electoral reforms.

You could just imagine how much he spent in buying off the barangay officials particularly the village chiefs who were the buying stations even during elections days. Even a number of our poll watchers were bought off by the other camp, thus giving a number of the BEI to read as they please to the advantage of their master.

If there are hard lessons to be learned from this electoral exercise, then it's the hard reality that a number of our constituents are still mired in poverty and therefore succumbed to money politics; to fight JDV who has all the government resources at his disposal was short of being Quixotic as shown by the presence of uniformed armed men who intimidated our supporters and voters as well as the five-layered vote buying operations in the last 48 hours; that good performance and fight for principles were swamped and forgotten by the color of money.

From a distance, I am happy to have fought JDV who during this campaign labored to campaign house-to-house to be with his poor constituents; who shared a substantial fortune and that of his friends just to be re-elected to Congress; who indiscriminately gave accident insurance cards to woo not just Lakas members but voters of our district.

I know deep in the heart of JDV who has been Speaker for 12 years, it's quite frustrating to have spent that fortune and exerted that much energy in this poll exercise which led him to describe this elections as "poisonous, dirty and most expensive." He must have seen his face on the mirror but sad to say, he had the temerity to throw mad at my camp.

In the last five days, JDV and his ilk unleashed a barrage of black propaganda campaign against me from playing up a supposed "food poisoning" case allegedly from the grocery item from Magic and the fabrication of fake Magic gift certificates, among others.

At the start of the campaign, I told my wife Celia that if I were to die today, I would die a happy man because of the chance to challenge JDV. Fight JDV, I did.

Sincerely,

Benjie

Is there any hope? I hope so and to quote Martin Bautista:

We can change our country; help our people, not by talking or theorizing but by actually doing something about it. One cannot simply make a statement. He must apply it in his life, by example, by involvement, by action.

There is a long road ahead and we will stay this way for a very long time maybe not in this lifetime if we don’t do anything about this culture of impunity. We need to send criminals who break our electoral laws to jail and let them suffer the consequence of their actions.