moral theology

I. INTRODUCTION
Election plays a very significant role in our lives. As the famous saying goes “No man is an island” we cannot but to belong to a community, we even belong to a family which is the basic unit of the community or society. Within the community in which we belong, in a broader sense, there has to be a leader who guides and direct his/her people. On the other hand, the people also have to choose a particular leader who is committed and competent enough or else there will be chaos and confusion as what Jesus says, “They are like sheep without a shepherd.” Whatever sort of government the people have whether democratic, communism, parliamentary, and many others it will always involve election of a one leader who believe to serve rather than to be serve. Nevertheless, is the election of a leader guarantees peace and order? Perhaps it may be also a source of turmoil and havoc. As long as leadership and service involves merely for money and to make money, the people who are suppose to be serve suffers the consequences: injustices, poverty, corruption, and many others. Some of the evident manifestation of injustices (particularly before, during, and after the election) is the manipulation and the alteration of what has to be done to have a fair, clean, and reliable election.
Here in the Philippines, we heard surveys and studies telling us how corrupt and dirty our politics is. There are times that these negative assertions become obviously seen and felt by the people whether rich or poor. During elections politicians do their best to make them appear to be competent to serve and rule the country. Sometimes if it turns out that their best is not good or effective enough to the majority of the people, the exploitation and the adjustment of our electoral system becomes a glimpse of hope for them to win. What pushes the researcher to research about this topic is to know some of the reasons why problems in electoral system still go on. Some of these problems exist even today, such as bribery or vote buying, flying voters, disenfranchisement of voters, infidelity of the poll watchers, dagdag bawas (addition–subtraction), alteration of certificates of canvass, disqualification of candidates, and many others. These problems, as they continue to grow, can paralyze and affect our understanding of democracy.
Since the national election is approaching, one of the significance of this research is to give some awareness to the civic educators on some of the effects of their teaching styles or techniques to the poor. Civic educators may include ordinary voters, advertising executives, and even politicians themselves (in a broader sense) as they state their plans and platforms during their candidacy. They have significant role in the community that is to educate, to orient, and to interpret not just the rules and procedures during elections but also to campaign against bribery and other dirty strategies used during elections. This research will also help not just those who are registered voters but also to any concerned citizens to consider and to understand the situation of the poor voters and on how they perceive election. Is the poor’s perception on election similar to those who belong to the upper and middle classes? How is it going to affect our electoral systems? Is it morally adequate to label their notion on election, bribery, etc. as immoral? What can we possibly do to lessen or even to remove these developing problems?
II. BRIBERY: WHAT IT IS
A. Outside the Church
This portion defines the word bribery in the secular manner or how the term is viewed by other people and communities. Bribery is widespread in many aspects of our daily lives such as politics, legal system, business, entertainment industry, medicine, sports, and many others.1 According to some dictionaries and encyclopedias, it involves money or gifts given to someone in exchange of something (a favor, etc.) and in order to influence the decision or behavior of a person. It also involves getting or approving to receive any reward, loan, fee, gift, etc. in a corrupt manner. The prior statement was more on the receiver’s side, when the receiver egrees to do the condition on which the gift is intented for. On the other hand, on the side of the giver, bribery also involves giving, soliciting, and promising a reward or encouragement in a dishonest manner. Bribery is usually viewed as an illegal and immoral act. Some instances are: bribing the police not to issue or charged the motorist of over speeding; bribing the assinged service officer for a faster and ‘short–cut’ procedure; bribing the civil servant to give award a contract to the construction company; bribing the judge to lessen criminal penalties for the drug dealer; and many other cases. However, one limitation of charging bribery is that it has to be proven first (in any case) to have a ‘corrupt purpose’ or an element of corruption which influences and affects the receiver’s choice and decision.
B. In the Church
This part refers to the churches’ documents and their (the churches’ authorities) views concerning bribery. According to the Catholic encyclopedia, bribery is “the payment or the promise of money or other lucrative consideration to induce another, while under the obligation of acting without any view to private emolument, to act as the briber shall prescribe.”2 Bribery normally refers to the payments or any consideration of producing profit or riches unlawfully ended in favor of the people who have responsibility to the nation and bind to act for the common good. It is unlawful because the people who serve the nation suppose to serve for the good of all not just for the good of a certain group of people. In the case of bribery, it involves a clear agreement between the giver and the receiver. In the Catholic observations, bribery is still an immoral action and rightly forbidden by the law and punishable in severe penalties. It is a form of untruthfulness and disloyalty to other people, to the country, and even to God. In the arena of politics, for instance, politicians are expected to be skilled and experienced in administrating the government and for the common good. In a biblical sense, they are to serve the people rather than to be served by the people: public service. Bribery is just one of the many dirty electoral practices that can ruin and destory not just the politician’s integrity and reputation but also to their victims, who agree, cooperate, and support with them in bribery. However, one factor makes these views complicated and that is the survey made by Frederic Charles Schaffer and companions in 2OO1 here in the Philippines.
III. THE SURVEY: A SIGN OF COMPLICATION
A. The Campaigns in 2OO1
The attempt of education campaigns in 2OO1 to inform poor people about bribery did not really totally reach its goal. Based on the result of the interviews, in order to measure the effectiveness of the sample ads, done by Frederic Charles Schaffer3 to the five communities4, some of the voters responded to the three anti–vote–buying or bribery ads samples, as it had no effect for them at all. Some of the respondents gave an unexpected reaction, which surprised the interviewers, like they find the ads hurtful or insulting.
As mentioned a while ago, civic educators will involve ordinary voters, advertising executives, voluntary organizations like NAMFREL (National Citizens Movement for Free Elections) and PPCRV (Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting), politicians, and many others. Though one may wonder if civic educators involved almost all of the people (especially those who are eighteen above and competent enough to vote) then how can civic educators be not effective enough in educating poor people who can also be called civic educators. In this research, most or majority of the civic educators who work and give information and orientation to the voters about matters from elections (in this paper specifically on bribery) are from the upper and middle classes. Some of their goals are to make elections both clean and all encompassing as possible. Sometimes they try to clean up dirty electoral practices, as mentioned in the introduction, by teaching ordinary voters to change their behavior or the way they see election and to convince people to obey existing election laws, such as to vote secretly, to avoid selling their votes, to resist the temptation of voting more than once, and to keep away from as much as they can to engage on any of the dirty electoral practices like bribery and many others.
Sometimes in order to reach these goals (to make the elections clean, and many others) and as they try to convince voters not to sell their votes through anti–vote–buying–ads, many of the civic educators state their message in a simple and appetizing way such as ‘accept the money, but vote according to your conscience.’ Even the late Archbishop of Manila Jaime Cardinal Sin, when the years of late President Marcos is falling, recommended voters to “take the bait but not the hook.”
In 2OO1 national election, the two poll watching groups or the most well-known voluntary organizations involved in cleaning up elections such as NAMFREL and the PPRCV, try to give an orientation or awareness to the people about the wrongness of bribery. This is very possible by using radio and television stations and newspaper public service advertisements. These organizations also sponsored some radio and television stations and some newspaper public service ads as well. Some samples of their ads are the following: “Ask yourself, why is the candidate treating your vote as a commodity or an item in a sari–sari [corner convenience] store?” (NAMFREL handout); “Your vote is valuable, it doesn’t have a price. Your character is priceless. So, in this election, don’t sell your character, don’t sell your vote.” (NAMFREL public service ad, May 2OO1); “Do you love the country or the money? Don’t be blinded by money. Vote with your conscience.” (3M Innovation – the maker of post-its); “A little pocket change won’t put you ahead. Don’t ask for a bribe. Vote for the right and good candidate.” (Red Horse Beer public service ad, May 2OO1); You’re walking to your precinct to vote, and wow, very good, you’ve brought a list of worthy candidates when… Vote buyer: ‘hey buddy, brother, friend, chief, etc.’ Voter: ‘What? You talking to me?’ Vote buyer: ‘Yeah you. 1OOO pesos for your vote. Just copy this sample ballot. Here’s carbon paper so that when you come out you have proof that you copied it.’ What will you do?” (NAMFREL public service ad, May 2OO1).
Some groups even disseminated a song which has a title Hindi Mo Ako Mabibili (You Can’t Buy Me). These groups called Pagbabago@Pilipinas (who composed the song) were consits a group of artists, educators, businessmen and women, and professionals who contributed to social reform and were obviously, most of them, belong to the upper and middle classes.
To determine whether these anti–vote–buying–ads were effective enough or not for the voters, Schaffer with a team of interviewers preferred three ads and let the 16O selected voters (in the five communities) saw the ads. These choosen ads are the following: from NAMFREL’s “your vote is valuable…”; Red Horse Beer’s “pocket change…”; and 3M’s “blinded by money…”. Out of the 16O selected voters, fourteen percent said that they were enlightened and convinced after seeing the ads from NAMFREL, twenty–two percent from Red Horse Beer, and twenty–nine percent from 3M. Above and beyond those three sample ads, the interviewees were also asked to say something about NAMFREL’s “do you love the country?” and some of them gave an unanticipated feedbacks. Some others answered that the ads was not effective enough and some felt they were completely insulted by the ads. Another interviewee’s negative reaction says, “The ads are influential, embarrassing, and offending.”
Here in the Philippines, voter education has been the foundation stone of hard works to control, limit, and hopefully to eradicate bribery. However, it was interpreted in other way or maybe just misunderstood by many of us particularly from the lower classes. This will lead us then to another discussion concerning how the views of these two classes affect our electoral systems.
B. In the Upper and Lower Lenses
There are differences on how these people on the two sides of these classes (the upper and the middle classes and the lower classes) divide the view of elections and the meaning of bribery. Majority of the members of the organizations that are engaged in voters’ education, such as NAMFREL and PPCRV, are from the middle and upper classes. According to the responses of the survey done by Schaffer to the poor voters in Commonwealth and some places in Metro Manila, many of the people accept money because they don’t see the act as the means to buy their votes.
Looking at the point of view of how the upper and the middle classes view democracy, politics, and bribery differs from the lower classes’ view, the struggle and fight against bribery and the attempt to replace dirty politics with clean politics becomes unbalance because these projects are more on the views from the upper and middle classes. Some newspaper editorialists share in their articles some opinions of many upper and middle classes concerning the masa (masses). According to one of them, “the ‘masa’ (masses) treats elections as mere fund–raising circuses.”5 This suggests that the poor, without any moral and political discernment, treats their votes as if a product on which they can exchange for money. According to a journalist, “An important way to combat vote buying is to provide poor voters with a moral education to rescue them from the bondage of ignorance.”6 As stated on some part of this paper, many of the 2OO1 advertisements recommended the poor to vote with their conscience, to love their country, and to have self respect. These recommendations, however, indirectly produce the same effect as the text messages during the third Edsa revolution. More details about these Edsa revolutions and the text messages will be discussed on the following part of the paper. The messages from the text perceive the poor, who went to Edsa (the third time), just to have free meals and just to earn more money. They were not there because of their principle and furthermore they are assumed helpless, dirty, not considering the future, and lacking in moral and political awareness.
However, the responses from a few questions about the topic bribery in a national, post election survey7 of 1,2OO Filipinos produce more complicated answers than just a simple exchange of votes for money.8 Many voters, especially the poor, receive money during elections. Most of the poor voters, even though they receive money, still seemingly practiced their freedom of choice or still vote according to the dictate of their conscience. Other reasons for receiving money come out such as the economic motives; some don’t want to embarrass the person who gave the money, and some believes that it is the candidate’s obligation to give money or things to their supporters. Many people also accepted the money that was being offered to them because they didn’t see it as a way to buy their votes. There is what they called as the ‘goodwill money.’ Money that is given without a ‘string’ attached to it that is without condition or obligation. For this reason, many believed that goodwill money (as an act of kindness and generosity on the part of the candidates) did not bound or urges the voters to vote for the giver or bidder. As one laundry woman puts it, “there was no condition attached to the money that they gave me so I didn’t feel I had any obligation to them. But I voted for them just because they bothered to give me something.” To many urban poor voters, it seems that it is just okay to accept gifts if they came from the candidates who shows kindness, who cares for them, and who offers their hands in times of needs and difficulties. According to an antropologist,
What matters most to people… is the way others attribute or deny value to them as human beings. It is primarily in this context that wealth differences are to be understood. Indeed, it is the common burgis [bourgeois] tendency to portray the lives of the poor purely in terms of material deprivation that people… find so degrading and shaming. Seen as eking out a bare hand–to–mouth existence, they are effectively denied their own humanity and culture.9 The mainstream of the members of the organizations that are engaged in voters’ education, such as NAMFREL and PPCRV, are from the upper and middle classes. Even these two voluntary organizations acknowledged that it was difficult for them to recruit volunteers especially among the lower classes. For example here in Quezon City during 2OO1 elections, according to the data collected by Schaffer, the PPCRV which has 75 precinct territories and with more than 113,OOO registered voters got only one volunteer for every 119 registered voters from the upper and middle classes while only one volunteer for every 24O registererd voters from the lower classes. On the other hand, there were still some from the lower classes that support more than a few central part of the goals of PPCRV and NAMFREL like decreasing the occurrence of terrorization, vote stuffing, disfranchisement, and ballot box stealing but large numbers of them were not joining these organizations.
C. Politics According to Whom
The problem also lies on how the Philippine democracy is viewed from the upper and the middle classes (the rich and the bourgeois) and the lower classes (the poor). According to Schaffer,
Many in the upper and middle class tend to view ‘bad’ politics as a dirty politics of patronage and corruption, while they see ‘good’ politics as a clean politics of issues, accountability, and transparency. On the other hand, ‘good’ politics for many among the poor is a politics of dignity (a politics of consideration and kindness), while ‘bad’ politics for them is a politics of callousness and insult.10

Elections, for many in the upper classse and middle classes, are considered the wellspring of discouragement and nervousness. This is so because it is also obvious that many of the politicians whom the upper and middle classes recognized as incompetent, corrupt, and with just a little or even no experience in politics, do good in the election time. Some of these people, who do well election after election, are actors, actresses, entertainers, sports heroes, and many others. However, due to their (the upper and middle classes) less number in population compared to lower classes, they are left with a feeling of electoral powerlessness. An evident example of this is the strategy used by a presidential candidate Joseph Ejercito Estrada, also known as Erap, who ran in 1998 with a slogan ‘Erap para sa mahirap’ (Erap for the poor). As a result he got most of the votes from the lower classes (the moderately poor and very poor) with about, statistically more or less, 86% against the votes from the upper classes which only consist of about 23%. Another instance was when Mayor Jejomar Binay proposed for reelection in 1995 he was opposed by many of the upper and middle classes in Makati City. In spite of the oppositions of his proposal, Binay just told them mockingly, “You only compromise five percent of the people here, and when it comes to votes yours don’t matter, we can even do without counting them.” His estimation was correct and he won the reelection.
Looking back at our Edsa revolutions, the second and the third gatherings somehow expresses the gap between the upper and the lower classes. The second Edsa revolution gatherings, when Estrada was charged, impeached, and arrested, was said to be drawn largely from the middle and upper classes. On the other hand the counter–demonstration (the third Edsa revolution gatherings), when Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was ask to step down and have Estrada back to his position, was said to be mostly from the lower classes. In connection with this event, one of the evident manifestations of this gap was the spreading text messages commenting about the Edsa revolutions. Notice that at that time, year 2OO1, most of the cell phone owners were from upper and middle classes and the copied or pirated versions of original cell phones (the China phones) which are less expensive were not that rampant and famous yet.11 Some of these text messages questioned the motivations of those who went to the third Edsa revolution by mocking their ‘poverty’ and ‘hunger.’ For instance, “Edsa 1: free the nation from a dictator. Edsa 2: free the nation from a thief. Edsa 3: free lunch, dinner, breakfast, and snacks too… let’s go!” This suggests that those who cooperated during the second Edsa revolution were motivated by their principles while those who were at the third Edsa revolution were there just for the handout. There were also some text messages that ridicule the lower classes for being ‘stupid’: “The world’s looking at the Philippines again. The rally at Edsa will be in the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest gathering of fools, idiots, and imbeciles ever.” Another text message that belittle those who were at the third Edsa revolution for being ‘dirty’: “Calling all the filthy and ignorant, the toothless and unclothed, let’s prove we have no brains – go to Edsa, please pass.” These negative assertions to the lower classes were not just out of the upper and middle classes’ observations but also out of class anxiety.
Because of these phenomenon, social biases and prejudices becomes more intense and worst between the upper and the lower classes. Based also on what they see or on how they rate themselves according to their status, the lower classes were perceived as unhygienic, unclean, and dirty by the upper classes. According to an anthropologist Mary Douglas (1966) that the concept of ‘dirt’ was considered to be something that is out of the right place or not in the proper place. Thus in the lenses of many of the upper classes, the poor were not in the right place whether in the Edsa or in the electoral ground. They are even sometimes blamed by the upper classes because of the foul-smelling and the decayed of politics here in our country.
Some of the upper and the middle classes proposed two ways to solve these problems; it is either to repel or to correct. To ‘repel’ is to push the ‘dirt’ (term used to refer to the poor as an aftermath of the third Edsa revolution) back to where it belongs. That is to limit the voters’ rights or to disfranchise those who don’t file tax returns and the other one is to require voters to pass the competency examination. To correct or in other words ‘corrective intervention,’ which most of the reformers favored for any realistic, political, and principled reasons, is the other way to put the poor in their places. This corrective intervention involves discipline and training. Reformers and civic educators have tried to discipline the poor on telling them the value and the importance of not just their votes, but also to who are they going to vote, and why do they need to vote. They also tried their best to train them in the sense of instructing them how to vote and directing them about the process in order for them to be valid voters. There are recent evidences on this, when civic educators don’t just give an orientation about the automated counting machines (ACM) but also they let the voters to measure its effectiveness by using the machines.
IV. THE SURVEY ACCORDING TO SOME SPECIFIC TOPICS IN MORAL THEOLOGY
A. Freedom and Knowledge According to the Catechism for Catholic Church (CCC), “freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility” (1731). In the survey, those who were interviewed were free enough and were not forced by the politicians thus it presupposes that their acts and their decisions can be evaluated morally. Another thing is that the purpose of the survey was to measure the effectivity of the anti–vote–buying–ads and, in a deeper sense, to dig deeper in the unexpected yet shocking response from the lower classes. In the face-to-face approach interview (one on one) many of them shared honestly and frankly about their feelings and emotions. In the survey case many from the lower classes voters, even though offered some money by some of the politicians, still practice their freedom of choice or they parctice their ability to choose among a number of options (e.g. political candidates). However, the question of using their freedom responsibly, practicing it within the situation of one’s community, and directing it to truth and goodness is vague and challenged. Lower classes voters may think that they use their freedom in the right way but for the upper classes it’s not. Concerning the situation of their community, the reality of living in survival basis can be the reason why for many of the lower classes voters, candidates who give something is perceive as potential winners because of their kindness and generosity. However due to the fact that poor voters accepted the money, the act of accepting the money was not directed toward truth and goodness.
B. Conscience Evaluating the situation and the background of many of the lower classes, we can foresee and imagine that it would be a crowded place (e.g. squatter areas), untidy surroundings, and an evident scene of poverty. Based on the survey, the people who were interviewed are ordinary voters such as vendors, laundry women, drivers, and many others. The influence from their families, other people, and environments can inculcate a distorted image of God and a distoted worldview of life, love, and faith. Thus the dictate of their super–ego (can be their first reaction or impulse) becomes the primary voice and is even stronger than their conscience (God as the one speaking). As stated above, a number of ordinary voters from the lower classes accepted the money yet still vote according to their conscience which means that they follow their conscience and it was up to them who to vote for. However, if poor voters from the lower classes vote for a particular candidate just by looking at one issue, for instance for the candidate’s generosity and kindness during electoral campaigns or by giving money, the primacy of conscience is less or no function at all. Primacy of the conscience is not that realized or actualized because most of the poor voters vote for the wrong reason (by looking at one issue only), they may have an unformed conscience (erroneous conscience), and they may influenced by their parents, friends, and communities much. What can the church do as one of the civic educators, since she can’t organize vote, is to persuade voters that their vote is sacred and can’t be change, to decide according to their conscience (it’s not just a matter of sin but discernment), and to highlight the significance of conscience as a voters’ guide.
V. CONCLUSION Civic educators certainly did their best and made a great effort to clean up elections through educating ordinary voters. They have used media and they have great and wide range of access to transmit their campaigns about how to have clean election, how to be a responsible voter or citizen, and so on. Certainly, as far as they can, they tried to make their message clear and understandable. However, the goal of these civic educators to have a clean election, resulted to an unanticipated reactions and unexpected costs among the poor. The effects of their efforts were known and discovered through the surveys and interviews done by Frederic Charles Schaffer together with some of the known polltakers.
The problem, based on the surveys, is rooted on the model used for educating people like in the case of anti–vote–buying–ad campaigns, which is good and appetizing only for many of the upper and middle classes. In addition to this the Edsa phenomenon adds fire to the heat of upper and middle classes’ discriminations and predispositions. However, to fight back and to seek for revenge is not the adequate solution for this. In this case, civic educators have just missed the mark yet there is still hope, there is still time to change the strategies and techniques on educating poor people about election. Unless this style of education doesn’t change, civic educators can never reach their goal --- to have clean elections.