{"id":4294,"date":"2016-04-04T11:44:39","date_gmt":"2016-04-04T11:44:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/?p=4294"},"modified":"2016-04-04T11:44:39","modified_gmt":"2016-04-04T11:44:39","slug":"who-is-bankrolling-grace-poes-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/?p=4294","title":{"rendered":"Who is bankrolling Grace Poe\u2019s campaign?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Sen. Grace Poe-Llamanzares declared her candidacy for president of the Philippines, she confessed that she didn\u2019t have the organization or the resources to run a presidential campaign.\u00a0 With no political party to provide the resources, manpower, and a nationwide political network \u2014 and without tons of moolah<\/em>, which she admittedly lacks \u2013 Grace\u2019s campaign vehicle would be like a Mercedes Benz 500 with a go-kart engine.\u00a0 It wouldn\u2019t be able to move just like a carabao stuck in quicksand.<\/p>\n

But the \u201clady in white\u201d \u2013 she loves to wear men\u2019s white shirt in campaign sorties \u2013 must have some kind of \u201cvoodoo\u201d power, as someone had suggested, to generate billions of pesos for her campaign.\u00a0 But that\u2019s an outlandish notion unless you believe in kulam<\/em> or witchcraft.\u00a0 And if you don\u2019t believe any of that, a more plausible explanation is that the money is from some mega-rich oligarch who sees in Grace the \u201cperfect puppet\u201d who could easily be influenced once elected.\u00a0 This makes one wonder: Is the government run by oligarchs?\u00a0 If you ask me, my answer is simple: Yes, absolutely!<\/p>\n

But you might argue that, just like Uncle Sam the Philippines is a democratic country with democratically elected politicians who are mandated to preserve a government in the image of what U.S. President Abraham Lincoln aptly described in his Gettysburg Address, to wit: \u201cThis nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom \u2013 and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cGovernment run like hell\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, the bad news is that our motherland \u2013 \u201cInang Bayan\u201d<\/em> \u2013 has been run just like how the late Philippine Commonwealth President Manuel L. Quezon had envisioned it to be when he said: \u201cI prefer a government run like hell by Filipinos to a government run like heaven by Americans.\u201d<\/em> That\u2019s what most Filipinos remember to this day.\u00a0 But that was only the first part of what he said.\u00a0 Not many Filipinos recall the second part, which was: \u201cBecause, however bad a Filipino government might be, we can always change it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Quezon might not have realized that what he declared then would become the campaign template of politicians seeking the presidency, to wit: Attack the current president and his administration\u2019s standard bearer as bad leaders, and present yourself as the \u201cagent for change.\u201d\u00a0 Indeed, President Benigno Aquino III\u2019s campaign slogan was \u201cChange\u201d or \u201cPagbabago.\u201d <\/em> It worked because the voters bought it, hook, line, and sinker.<\/p>\n

It is no wonder then that most of the time Filipinos would vote against an incumbent president (or his administration\u2019s candidate) and elect the opposition candidate whom they perceive as the \u201cagent for change.\u201d\u00a0 Indeed, this strategy was influenced by Quezon\u2019s \u201cgovernment run like hell\u201d mantra.\u00a0 All the candidate has to do is make a convincing appeal to the voters\u2019 emotions.<\/p>\n

Tip of the iceberg<\/p>\n

But to do an excellent job of convincing the people, the candidate needs lots and lots of money.\u00a0 And this is where the oligarchs, plutocrats, kleptocrats, and influence peddlers come into play. \u00a0\u00a0Collectively, they have billions to invest in a candidate.\u00a0 But there are always strings attached; they want huge returns on their \u201cinvestments.\u201d\u00a0 And this makes the candidate, once elected president, indebted to them for a long time.<\/p>\n

How do you think the new president would repay his or her financiers who\u2019d expect the dividends of their investments go as high as tenfold\u2026 maybe more?\u00a0 \u00a0And where do you think an indentured president will get the money to pay these dividends?\u00a0 This is where corruption kicks in and the new president will end up running the government just like Quezon had envisioned\u2026 like hell.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a vicious cycle and there is no end to it.\u00a0 However, it can be mitigated.\u00a0 In other words, corruption can be minimized if the new president doesn\u2019t have to kick back huge \u201cdividends,\u201d and conversely, corruption can be maximized if large amounts were donated to his or her campaign.\u00a0 It\u2019s simple mathematics and there are no exceptions; which begs the question: Given that Llamanzares had admitted that she didn\u2019t have the organization and finances to run a presidential campaign, where did she get the funds she spent for \u201cpre-campaign ads\u201d?\u00a0 That\u2019s only the tip of the iceberg.\u00a0 Indeed, more money has to be pumped into her campaign to beat her closest rivals, Vice President Jejomar \u201cJojo\u201d Binay and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo \u201cDigong\u201d Duterte.\u00a0 Latest reporting data show that she had bought more than 20,000 ad slots \u2013 more than any of her rivals — in the six weeks prior to the May 9th elections.<\/p>\n

Campaign expenditures<\/p>\n

So far, Binay had spent the largest amount for \u201cpre-campaign ads,\u201d which is P1.05 billion followed by Llamanzares at P1.02 billion.\u00a0 Roxas spent P969.2 million and Duterte only spent P146.4 million.\u00a0 Would it then fair to presume that if Binay wins, his administration would be more corrupt than any of his rivals? And since Llamanzares is just a tad below Binay\u2019s \u201cpre-campaign ads\u201d expenditures, would that indicate that her administration would be as corrupt as Binay\u2019s?<\/p>\n

And by simple process of elimination, who do you think would have the least corrupt administration?\u00a0 The answer is in the stats, which would indicate that Duterte, having the lowest campaign expenditure, would have the least corrupt administration.<\/p>\n

Corruption<\/p>\n

Interestingly, all the candidates had vowed to fight corruption.\u00a0 My reaction is: Hahaha\u2026<\/em> But what else can they say?\u00a0 Would anyone of them claim that his or her administration would be the \u201cleast\u201d corrupt?\u00a0 Of course not!\u00a0 That would be the \u201ckiss of death.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the candidates have been trained in the \u201cart of denial.\u201d\u00a0 By denying any knowledge of who donated to their campaigns, it would insulate them from favor-seeking donors.\u00a0 That\u2019s hogwash!\u00a0 Do you think an oligarch who donated\u2026 say, P200 million, would want to remain anonymous?\u00a0 On the contrary, donations would open doors of \u201cbusiness\u201d opportunities for the donors.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, it\u2019s a legal and moral responsibility of the candidates to disclose the donors to their campaigns.\u00a0 It\u2019s the right of the people to know who the financiers are, particularly if they are foreigners.\u00a0 This is so the people would know that no foreign entities \u2013 friends or enemies of the state alike \u2013 are \u201cinvesting\u201d in presidential campaigns or any campaign for that matter.\u00a0 \u00a0It\u2019s one thing to be indebted to Filipinos but to be indentured to foreigners smack of treason because you can never tell what those foreigners would demand once you\u2019re elected into office. \u00a0And this brings to the fore the question: Who is bankrolling Grace Poe-Llamanzares\u2019 campaign?\u00a0 \u2014 by Perry Diaz in PerryScope<\/p>\n

(PerryDiaz@gmail.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Sen. Grace Poe-Llamanzares declared her candidacy for president of the Philippines, she confessed that she didn\u2019t have the organization or the resources to run a presidential campaign.\u00a0 With no political party to provide the resources, manpower, and a nationwide political network \u2014 and without tons of moolah, which she admittedly lacks \u2013 Grace\u2019s campaign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,57],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4294"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}