The Commission on Elections has finally, though very reluctantly, agreed to investigate the recent promise of Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez to pay P10,000 to each barangay captain in Iloilo City who can deliver a 12-0 sweep for the administration's Team Unity on May 14.
This promise is outright bribery that is clearly banned by the Omnibus Election Code according to Comelec director Ferdinand Rafanan. "In Section 261, Paragraph A of the Omnibus Election Code, there are three acts which are considered crimes: the act of giving, the act of offering and the act of promising. That's why the mere act of promising money is already a crime," he told ABS-CBN television Thursday morning.
The OEC is clear that any offer of cash for votes is strictly forbidden, but it apparently is not so clear when it comes to other types of benefits promised to voters in the course of an election campaign.
Speaker of the House Jose de Venecia is taking advantage of this moral gray area by handing out health insurance cards to voters in his home province of Pangasinan. With health coverage up to P100,000 per person and benefits in case of death, this in my book adds up to a bribe to vote for Team Unity. No, it's not cash, but the benefits it offers cost money, money that many a poor voter does not usually have and if they did have this money probably would not use it for health insurance.
Administration supporters defended JDV's handing out of health insurance cards saying that under election rules political parties could offer free medical insurance to its members. Already, JDV has distributed 3 million health insurance cards and wants to give out 2 million more. Is it mere semantics to say that the Lakas-CMD party has 3 million members? Perhaps, since presumably to become a member all a voter has to do is sign a membership form, which is easy enough for a person to do if they get free medical insurance in return.
It is interesting to note that chief presidential legal counsel Sergio Apostol said in a television interview on Wednesday night that while he thought Gonzales' offer was not illegal, he found it to be morally wrong. Which sounds like a minute parsing of a legal and moral issue to me, which should not be the case. Bribery is bribery, not matter what guise it takes, and just because the briber in this case is the secretary of justice does in any way make it right or acceptable.
It will be interesting to see what Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos comes up with in his investigation of Gonzales. I'm not holding my breath though, as Abalos is clearly pro-administration and I long ago lost any respect for him after he managed to screw up the computerization of the elections a few years ago.
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