I was listening to Adel Tamano’s guesting on the morning show at 89.9 FM a few days ago and he was talking about how politicians can become slaves of their campaign contributors. He coined a really nice term – “People’s Bitch”. He said this in the context that politicans should not be beholden to their contributors and they should really focus on being the servants of the Filipino people. The sad reality is that politicians in the Philippines have a long history of corruption and they are weak when it comes to temptation due to the massive amounts of money needed to run a campaign. Campaign contributors, or should we call them “investors”, are usually corporations, special interest groups, or just really insanely rich individuals who turn the politician from the people’s servant to their “bitch”. In exchange for the funding, they will ask for favors which will make them even richer. It’s not really a contribution but an investment since there is a relatively good ROI.

Now hold on to that thought for a moment and let me digress a bit. I went to a forum yesterday afternoon with featured US President Obama’s campaign consultant, Jo Hansen. One of the topics he discussed was how they mobilized the people to rally behind Obama’s campaign and how much money they raised. Guess what?

13,000,000 Americans voluntarily opted in Obama’s website and the campaign was able to raise around $600 million US dollars through contributions.

And that is what validates and solidifies the mandate of President Obama. Instead of turning his attention on getting more contributions from companies and various groups, he turned to his supporters asking for low amounts of $1-$5. Those who were really generous gave more than what the campaign was asking for. This resulted to a massive surge of funds which the Obama camp used to crush the Republicans. According to Jo Hansen, the Obama camp spent 3x more money than their opponent because of the influx of funds from their supporters. Why is it that in the Philippines it’s the other way around? The supporters are the ones expecting money from the candidate? Hahaha!

Mr. Jo Hansen, President Obama’s Campaign Consultant

What does this mean for the Philippines? Well, it can literally mean nothing since the internet and credit card penetration in the US is far superior compared to our country. However, I would like to look deeper into this and zero in on the fact that the people did mobilize under the candidate and they were more than happy to give what they can since they really believed in what he stood for and what he wanted to do when he got to the Presidency.

In other words, President Obama is not the corporate bitch. He is not a slave to the elite. If ever he has anyone to thank for his win, it will have to be the people. They voted for him and they gave him the money to launch his campaign.

I don’t have a clue as to how we will reach that kind of political maturity in this country. What I do know is that our current system sucks like hell. We read about it everyday – government officials abusing their power while stealing millions of pesos that could be used to fund education reforms. We have so many politicians who will do anything to preserve themselves and their cronies.

Adel Tamano’s interview and the forum showed me a very glaring contrast between what should be and what’s the current situation in local politics. I don’t know how but we really do need a “People’s Bitch” because unless someone comes and breaks this cycle of corruption, this country will continue to spiral downwards. When that will happen? Hopefully in 2010 but so far no one is stepping up to the challenge.

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