To Organizers of Politicians---a Message from a Comrade

One of the things I always tell my grassroots organizer friends is this---don't contribute to graft and corruption. Since they help politicians in their campaigns, the best thing that they can do is lessen that politician's campaign expenses. I say, the more they squeeze money out of these pols, the more they will be driven to recoup their money after they win the polls. And that starts the cycle of corruption.

Many of my former comrades in both the Left and the Right are involved in numerous campaigns of politicians. They have what many others do not have---the numbers. These organizers are like shepherds--they herd the people to rallies and campaign sorties. They call upon the poor masses and convince them to join rallies and sorties. They are the ones who rent the vans and provide food and transpo expenses. And they are the ones who campaign hard for the candidate.

Fact is---these organizers are the "secret weapons" of politicians. They can't live without them.

For a traditional politician, there are three (3) aspects of a campaign: the campaign machinery, the sectoral organization and of course, the legal election body. The machinery can't move without sectoral support and everything else fails and falls without the legal support coming from a well-entrenched election lawyer. 

Organizers right now fetch between 15,000 to 45,000 php, a smaller sum compared to expenses for media. Media placements ate about 60-70% of the budget of national campaigners while local politicians spend 3/4ths of their budgets on sectoral organizations. Fact is, the more massive your ground troops are, the better chances of being victorious in the polls.

Yet, we all know that organizing work entails huge expenses, especially nowadays where everything is expensive. That said, expenses goes by the millions and if you're just gunning for a mayoral post which gives you less than 30,000 pesos monthly pay, totally forgive-able for you to actually think of ingenious ways on how to re-coup your initial poll investment.

If organizers would just sacrifice their personal expenses and just do things without raking in huge expenses for the candidate, the more likely for that candidate to just serve his constituency well and not think of stealing and robbing the people blind. 

So I say, to my former colleagues in the Movement--do not be party or start the cycle of corruption. Advise your clients to just spend modestly and not overspend for something as surreal as a councilor's post. Or, those who are working for Manny Villar--think. You are working for a businessman whose mindset is simply profit. The more you squeeze organizers' money out of Villar's campaign kitty, the more likely that we, all of us, will face a very scandal-ridden administration once he wins.