S1E77 - The new campaign battleground is the gullible mind

ven when throwing loaded dice, so long as all players are fairly aware that the dice are loaded, and every player rolls the same dice, whoever comes out the winner technically won fair and square. It’s called “handicapping” and the rule is you have to object to any improper or lopsided handicap before the game. If your objection is overruled, you walk out. You must refuse to play a game where you’re absolutely sure the game is rigged. If you throw your fate to the odds, you’ll be hard-pressed to protest later.

This is not a perfect analogy but it helps explain why Leni’s hands are straitjacketed against lodging an election protest.

This is a hard pill to swallow, but the fact is the vote counting software in the May 9 election remains a big question mark.

However, the opposition ACCEPTED the premise that there was nothing wrong with the software. They did not insist on publishing the program’s source code. They cannot investigate that NOW because “equity aids the vigilant.” He who sleeps on his rights forfeits them. Maybe that’s why Leni wouldn’t even bother to raise any formal protest—not if the contention is that the vote counting machines are rigged. That ship has sailed a long time ago, she knows.

It is anecdotal that the Marcoses engaged the advocacy consultancy services of Cambridge Analytica. So what if they did? It’s malicious but it's not against the law.

Lots of people hire psychoanalysts to help them railroad the behavior of a target audience. US grocers seek help from behavioral scientists to design the best layout for their grocery stores. Display the cigarettes and condoms right by the checkout counter—you now, where you will most likely be standing around with company, with very little allowance in decision-making time, so you grab the “forbidden fruit” items and dump them into your cart while pretending to look around elsewhere. Impulse buying is selling without resistance. What’s more, consumers will never buy a single condom—they’ll buy a whole box, maybe even several just to be able to seem to say, “they’re not for me, they’re for some OTHER people.” Watch the sales skyrocket.

Clearly, the psychologists have fine-tuned the science of making people buy the taboo and shed their inhibitions against the stigma of doing it. In 2022, you can frontally accuse someone of selling his vote without that person even getting offended! They all buy into the false advertising, they all drink the KoolAid

Election campaigns are all about product advertising—which encompasses false advertising. False advertising entails the promotion of an act upon the justification of an unfounded basis. If you manipulate the voter into a corner so that he has little or no wherewithal left to make an informed choice, it is foisting involuntary servitude and that should be against the law—and, in fact, it is if you could make a good case out of it.

Motu proprio (“on its own”) the State should be vigilant in protecting the Filipino people against manipulation. But take the sugar pill, or a flour-filled capsule sold in the open market as one “miracle product” or another, for example. They can promise to lower your risks of cancer—but, hey, if you hold your breath for one second, that’s one second when you did not have cancer. It “lowered” your risk of cancer by an exponential nanofraction of a millisecond but who can deny THAT?

Why, the health experts of the government, of course. They have tons of data and that efficacy claim is out-of-bounds with the real science of cancer treatment. So what do they do?

Simple, they just print something on the label that says, “No approved therapeutic claim.” It’s a clever way of saying “I’m not lying about the fact that I’m lying.” In the eyes of the law, candor like that makes them honest. Honesty is good faith and the law always rewards “good faith.” Just like that and they’ve got the DOH and DTI regulators scratching their heads while they rake millions selling unicorns in broad daylight.

Bongbong Marcos’ refusal to participate in debate is not indicia of incompetence. It was a stroke of Cambridge Analytica's genius. It’s a rewording of “no approved therapeutic claim” getting BBM to say, “I won’t talk about not wanting to talk about martial law.”

Everybody then said, “alright then, we will NOT make martial law the defining issue in this campaign. We’ll not talk about the dark past, we’ll talk about the rosy future.” The election was lost RIGHT THERE.

Long before there was any election manipulation, the Philippine psychometric environment has been a fertile bed for “budol” for decades. Snake oil salesmen have been hawking their wares to the Filipino masses for years—from “multi-level marketing” pyramid schemes, Ponzi scams and “double-your-money” cons galore. The government, somehow, is selectively blind to all that bilking. The result is that over the decades, the Filipino masses have been systematically dumbed down to a level of gullibility low enough you can claim an apparition of the virgin Mary occurring in your toilet and you’d still have thousands of devout flocking to your venal site. The State will not trifle with religious rights, ergo, you’ve got your snake oil sales convention.

Cambridge Analytica did not do an "Inception" job on Filipino voters--even they are not that good. All that this clever lobbying firm did was to arm an election machinery to wage false advertising, although the term they prefer to use is “family rebranding.” It wasn’t even a difficult job, to be frank. All they had to do is stoke and exploit the resentment, cynicism and tribal reflex among the lowest socioeconomic classes in Philippine society—the proverbial “CDE” demographic—that traditional politicians have been fanning for years, and you'll have Juan Tamad yearning for that golden age that never was. It did not start with Bongbong Marcos. Bongbong Marcos is a symptom, not the cause.

But it cannot be said that the opposition has been blindsided by much, either. They saw it coming or, perhaps more accurately, they could not have missed its early signs. SOMEBODY was going to get inside the voters’ heads, having seen HOW EASY it is to do so. The voters’ heads were the softest targets, totally unprotected by any precautionary safeguards of the State.

It’s perfectly fair to advocate, even to advertise. But to advocate malevolence and employ false advertising, that ought to have lit up red lights and tripped alarm bells all over the place early enough, shouldn’t it?

Strangely cruel enough, the 1987 Constitution says, “the State recognizes the vital role of communication and information in nation building” (Art. II, Sec. 24, Declaration of Principle and State Policies) and follows it up with, “the advertising industry is impressed with public interest and shall be regulated by law for the protection of consumers and the promotion of the general welfare.” (Art. XVI, Section 11, par. 2, General Provisions).

Make any untrue claim and project the claim to multitudes—that, ladies and gentlemen, IS false advertising.

The Constitution also announces that, “The State shall provide the policy environment for the full development of Filipino capability and the emergence of communication structures suitable to the needs and aspirations of the nation and the balanced flow of information into, out of, and across the country..."

I admit, when I first started lecturing on the 1987 Constitution years ago, this is one of those provisions that makes me scratch my head. Whenever students ask me, “what does it mean, sir?” I always cop out by throwing the question back to them, “what do YOU think it means?” Faculty privileges.

But now in 2022, I realize “communication structures” cannot mean cellphone towers and GPS satellites. The term must yield to the more profound signification referring to blogs, YouTube channels, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other data-launching platforms. The Constitution REQUIRES the State to regulate them. That’s what it means to “provide a policy environment” and it is not an optional duty but something it is mandated to do—that’s what the word “SHALL” means.

In the dying days of the campaign, Facebook deactivated over 300 accounts that violated its Community Guidelines. The conventional wisdom is that this probably benefited the Leni-Kiko team more and hit the Marcos propaganda apparatus hard. But just like in the NBA, it’s not really the last fiercely-contested points you score in the game that determines the winner, it’s the undefended points earned in the first three quarters that puts the game beyond the reach of the team trying to catch up. The battle against trolls was waged to late, when these fact-murdering hordes of digital liars have already damaged the Vice-president profoundly. They never proved anything, they just created an impression. But sometimes, impressions can be just as harmful as perfect persuasion.

The agenda not only for the next presidential elections in 2028 but for ALL FUTURE elections is clear. Before we can capture an accurate portrait of the will of the governed, we have to eliminate all vitiations against the electoral free will first.*

S1E79 - Leni's loss demoralizes my Alpha Class

ood evening, class.”

I glanced quickly at the big calendar hanging on the wall to double-check on the date. Is it really NOT November1?

My Alpha Section of third year law students looked so glum and downcast, I swear it felt like All Saints Day—the annual feast day for the dearly departed—inside the classroom.

“Well, the room looks familiar…you people look like my students,” I took a shot at breaking the ice, so to speak, “so what the hell happened to my exuberant class?”

“We lost in the election sir. We campaigned hard for decency and honesty in government and—” Miss Deema Niwala, normally the tireless class motormouth, could barely finish her sentence before biting hard on her pink handkerchief, fighting back tears.

“I just can’t understand why people would reject integrity and vote for corruption in government, sir,” Miss Kata, the class’ resident English major, chimed in. She too had glistening eyelids.

“No, no, no, don’t go there,” I said, keen on not allowing any more resurgences of election trauma in my classroom, “In an election you’re supposed to judge the CANDIDATES, not the VOTERS.”

“We can’t help it, sir,” Miss Laarnee Iwasan stood up, “we looked at the election as more than a contest between political parties. We looked at it as battle for the soul of this nation, a reaffirmation of what we believe in, of what we stand for as a people!”

“Uh-huh. And what do we stand for as a people, Miss Laarnee?”

“Accountability, sir!” Miss Laarnee bellowed, “and unequivocal proof of dedication to the tenets of genuine democracy and justice…”

“Well, that’s fine if you’re aiming for Miss America, or Miss Universe,” I said, “but all we’re looking for is a president. Someone who will carry out what the people want.”

“But that’s exactly the problem, sir,” Miss Deema retook the floor, “the people don’t know what they want. They certainly know what they don’t want—they don’t want corruption—so how come they still voted for what they know is bad for them? What is this? Total national cultural sadism?”

“Hmm…let’s take a close look at that,” I said, “Mr. Buhan, are you present?” I called for my student with the proper pre-Medicine background.

“I’m here, sir.”

“Tell us, Cabo, how many people die of lung cancer every year and what is its most common cause.”

I could hear my students rustling about, whispering, “where is the Prof going with this??”

“Lung cancer killed 130,180 people in the US last year, sir. Worldwide, the fatality number is about 2.1-million a year,” Mr. Cabo Buhan said.

“You did not answer my question. What is its most common cause?” I followed up.

“About 87% is caused by smoking, sir,” Cabo replied.

“Aha. Wow. Really? 87% percent, huh?” I repeated the statistic in order to preload a point I was about to make.

“So you’re saying around 2 million people all over the world literally kill themselves by smoking voluntarily and getting cancer, even though it is universally known and accepted today that smoking causes lung cancer?” I threw back the question at Mr. pre-Med.

“Uh…yes, sir,” Cabo confirmed.

“Alright. Therefore, it is not really unprecedented for millions of people to know that something is NOT GOOD for them and still elect to embrace that thing which is not good for them, am I correct?”

“Yeees, sir,” Cabo answered reluctantly.

“Listen, class, people know that smoking cigarettes is bad. People know that intoxicating alcohol is bad. But people smoke anyway, and drink alcohol anyway. Have you ever tried convincing someone to quit smoking?”

“I have, sir, I ended up smoking myself!” Jack Makataruz, the only Igorot sporting a mohawk said, setting off a mild wave of snickers.

“There you go,” I said, “when people are already set in their ancient ways, it’s going to take more than just an ordinary campaign to alter their behavior.”

“That’s not really fair, sir,” Miss Deema stood up again, “people smoke and drink because they are bombarded 365 days a year by subliminal conditioning that smoking is cool, that drinking is social. It’s all over television, ad billboards, song lyrics, movie scenes, we thrive in a contemporary culture that extols vices as virtues. So against all evidence and facts, cigarettes,and alcohol prosper.”

“Right,” I said, “so everytime someone lights a cigarette, he’s not really doing a rational act, is what you’re saying.”

“No, sir, I’m saying someone who lights a cigarette is intelligent enough not to do it. But he has to make that choice. It’s the choice that should be rational, not the smoking,” Miss Deema said. I can see her swashbuckling cross-examining skills are again starting to warm up.

“But you just said anyone who wants to quit smoking is fighting himself, because society has conditioned him to ignore the dangers of smoking in favor of the approval of society. It is society that tells him smoking is a good choice inspite of its inherent danger.”

“Right, sir.” Miss Deema said.

“RIGHT, SIR?? You’re agreeing with me?”

“Yes, sir, rationality cannot be fought with rationality,” said Miss Deema.

“Uh…I think you lost me there somewhere, hija. Can you run that by me again, I’m not sure you know what I’m trying to drive at,” I said.

“I’m way ahead of you, sir,” Deema said, “you’re trying to draw a parallel between smokers and people who voted for Marcos. I know why people voted for him. For older people, it’s an ingrained habit. For younger people, it’s a programmed response to stimuli that bombards them 24 hours a day, seven days a week and all year round on the internet.”

“Hmm…it’s really the part where you said you cannot fight rationality with rationality that threw me off,” I said.

“Dr. Juan Flavier,” Miss Deema replied.

“I’m sorry, WHO??”

“Dr. Juan Flavier, sir. He’s a former DOH Secretary, probably the best we ever had. He’s a doctor but he never delivered a lecture on the medical ill effects of cigarette smoking.”

“Oh, him! Yes, I remember Secretary Flavier. He never lectured on the medical ill effects of smoking??”

“No, sir, that would be the common expectation, the rational approach. Instead, what he did was popularize the expression ‘YOSI KADIRI!’ attaching a social stigma to smoking that got the attention of the youth. Soon enough, there was a mushrooming of local ordinances banning smoking in public places, with very strong support from the people, especially the youth, because of ‘YOSI KADIRI!”

“Secretary Flavier used social stigmatization to develop natural aversion to smoking among its most die-hard adherents. How unconventional—how irrational—indeed!” I agreed.

“That’s why I don’t accept that Leni lost, sir, but I will not deny that BBM won, either,” Miss Deema bipolarized on me again. I think this girl enjoys confusing her professor.

“I see,” I stroked my chin to appear like I get what she’s saying, “well, it looks to me like you understand why BBM won then. And just like even Secretary Flavier’s solution took time, it did not succeed overnight, I’m sure you know that disabusing Filipino voters of their endearment with mister Marcos is going to take a lot of time…maybe?” I hinted at wanting a closure on the subject.

“Of course, I understand sir. It will really take time. Right now we’re on the Marcos patch,” Miss Deema replied.

“Marcos patch? I don’t understand—" she cut me right in mid-confusion.

“It’s similar to a nicotine patch, sir. It will release small doses of ‘Marcosism’ into our national life from time to time, for the next six years until someday, hopefully, Filipinos would no longer crave for it,” Miss Deema ended. All her classmates burst out in guffaw.

Sometimes I forget why this girl is my favorite law student. This evening, I remembered, as I closed up my brief lecture too, “I will see you again Thursday, class dismissed!”***

S1E75 - Military atrocities always begin in small ways

will tell you why I have this uncomfortable feeling about the return of the Marcoses.

If you voted for BBM and think this is another one those put-down articles about him (it is not) then don’t read any further--I don’t care.

You could be the NEXT VICTIM of what I’m about to talk about so just go ahead, don’t read this, and just find out the hard way.

The way that Marcos SENIOR kept himself in power so long is by spoiling the military, police and the general law enforcement community—and I mean spoiling them rotten.

On a smaller scale, it’s the same way President Duterte kept them in his pocket. Both of them engendered the culture that the soldier, policeman—anyone in uniform—can do no wrong. Duterte even went as far as assuring “my soldiers” (that’s what he always calls them) that so long as they THINK someone is a “communist” they can feel free to shoot her in the vagina.

You might think that’s a simple directive, it is not. It’s a comprehensive license to unlimited liberty with a woman’s vagina to the point that you can shoot it with a gun. If you’re allowed to do that to a woman’s vagina, you can do practically anything else you fancy. And if your commander-in-chief says he will stand by you even after doing something as dastardly as that, then no Filipina—not your wife, girlfriend, sister, not even your mother—should ever feel safe in this country. And we’re talking here of conditions at present, when there is even NO martial law in place.

All those grisly stories of martial law atrocities—jailings, torturings, killings and disappearances—are stories of police and military abuse. Being only one man, of course, Marcos, Sr. couldn’t have personally participated directly in each of those acts. But all of them having been done under a general policy of protecting his administration from a manufactured communist threat, perpetrated by individuals acting with the tacit tolerance if not approval of a patronizing chain-of-command—the buck stops with the commander-in-chief. It’s the principle of command responsibility. Some people reject that idea, but those same people will be livid if the neighbor’s dog bites their children. Same thing, really.

There is that. But also there is the ingrained culture among us Filipinos (properly speaking, of course, this is universal) that a little power is a dangerous thing. It may just be an imagined power, or more commonly an over-contemplated one, but it soaks into the ranks of the uniformed services.

Since Bongbong Marcos emerged winner in the computerized election returns, I have lost count of friends of mine in the police and military establishment who have chided me, “O, ‘pano ngayon yan, atorni? Happy days are here again! Humanda kayo!”

THAT is the dangerous attitude I’m talking about. It derives from the fact that President Bongbong Marcos staunchly refuses to apologize for martial law. That sends a message to a heavily-armed community, grown weary from tight accountability during all these post-EDSA years, that the shackles of accountability are off. After all, however they comported themselves in dealing with a suppressed populace during the “golden age,” that is supposedly the gold standard of behavior. It’s what brought prosperity, peace and order, community discipline yada yada.

Initially, it will take baby steps, of course, before the police and military fully revitalize their capability to commit atrocity. So, for now, the indiscretions will be “little league.”

I had a taste of this yesterday as I was driving to my office. An LTO officer flagged me down in front of UP, right across Baguio Convention Center. There was no sign of a properly set up checkpoint (and the elections are over) or even a parked LTO vehicle with flashers on—nothing.

He asked for my license and registration, (“O.R./C.R.” that annoying acronym!). I wanted to know what my violation was. He wanted to see my registration papers first so he can determine what my violation is!

I did not want to provoke the fellow so I handed over my registration, OR/CR, proof of insurance (all CURRENT, none of it expired)—the whole enchilada.

Except my driver’s license—I drew a line in the sand with THAT. I was determined to challenge him to place me under arrest. He proceeded to take out his ticketing paraphernalia so I asked, “what exactly is my violation?”

He said my roof was treated with rubberized anti-corrosion coating that happened to be black.

“What’s wrong with that?” I asked.

“It says here on your OR/CR the car color is BLAZE,” he said.

It’s a little darker shade of red, but lighter than maroon. I bought the car in 2007 and never changed its original color. It has never failed any inspection BY THE LTO THEMSELVES for FIFTEEN YEARS!

Anyway, according to this LTO officer (his supervisor can get in touch with me if he wants the name) any color on any part of the car that doesn’t match “BLAZE” is a violation.

First of all, my car is a tall-ish AUV, it’s a Toyota Innova that if you’re on ground level you could barely see the roof’s color. Only birds see it from the air.

Secondly, my car comes with a pair of huge sideview mirrors on either side, both encased in fiberglass housing, and even “huger” front and rear bumpers, both wraparound composite fiberglass ‘faschias’; All around, of course are, four huge radial tires protected by huge rubber mudguards—all FACTORY TRIMS and ALL BLACK.

That’s not reflected in the OR/CR which simply says the car is blaze (red). If you show my car to any kindergarten kid and ask the kid, “What do you see?”

I will bet you my life the kid would say, “It’s a RED CAR!”

But not to this LTO officer. He insists he needs to write me a ticket. So I asked him again, “So ano nga ang violation ko?”

In a gruff tone he said, “Kasasabi ko lang! Wrong color!”

Now, wait a minute—HOW DID HE KNOW THAT? Specifically, how was he able to determine that I was supposedly in “violation” before he saw my registration papers?

You see, this is the reason I flunk many students in Constitutional law—when they cannot instill in their minds that you’ve got to have “probable cause” BEFORE apprehension. You don’t apprehend first AND THEN look for probable cause to justify the apprehension AFTERWARDS.

Looking at my car looming in the horizon, it is absolutely impossible for this LTO officer to have sufficient personal knowledge of any fact sufficient to engender a well-founded belief that a crime is being committed in his presence. He couldn’t have thought, “Aha! Look at this red car,” he wouldn’t even know it is BLAZE, “I bet of all the 64 colors in a typical box of Crayola, there’s a good chance the registered color is NON-RED. I better apprehend him to find out!”

As funny as it is, it is really a serious violation of a very rudimentary constitutional principle. But this LTO officer would have none of it. He was dead set on writing me a ticket. So I decided to just submit to his extremely swollen perception of his authority to cite me for a violation that carries a P3,000 fine, if I’m not mistaken.

“Alright, hijo, just make sure you spell my name right: it’s ATTORNEY Joel Dizon.”

You could have heard a pin drop!

Then after a brief spell, his whole attitude changed. “Ay, sige po, ser, warning na lang muna ngayon!”

So I asked him, “hindi ka ba malalagay sa alanganin nyan?”

He said, no, HE HAS THE DISCRETION TO DETERMINE WHO IS IN VIOLATION AND WHO IS NOT.

The words sent a cold chill down my spine. That is the mind-conditioning that a LITTLE POWER gives.

Then he became more polite, although self-patronizing, giving me the favorite spiel of public officers caught off-guard: he was just doing his duty, he gives the same treatment to everybody. He began to pontificate about his deep personal commitment to service to country and the advancement of the common good, he has to enforce the law on everybody, even to lawyers, otherwise there would be chaos on the streets, yada yada.

I thought to myself, “where have I heard those lines before? ‘pantay-pantay tayong lahat…sa ikauunlad ng bayan, disiplina ang kailangan…”

I just shrugged it off, and as I prepared to drive off I think he was more relieved than I was.

Baby steps.

And indeed a profound warning. At this point, our police and military may not be “1972-vicious”…yet. But keep them marinated in a culture of impunity and they eventually will be…again.

Like I said, if you’re a BBM supporter and hate my writing this, I don’t care. The fellow gave me some slack totally because I happened to be a lawyer. I knew my rights and I could articulate them well. In fact, it's all I do to my students EVEN ON FACEBOOK all year long. But I think about the ordinary person who knows little or nothing of the law. If you get to experience the same flagging down, try saying, “ibinoto ko si BBM!”

I’m really curious if it would have the same effect.*

S1E74 Vitiating the consent of the governed

ood evening class.”

I walked into a roomful of zombies. Everybody had eyes bloodshot red, dishevelled hair, blank stares and were slumped in their chair, like the last time they slept in a horizontal position was three months ago.

“I see you’ve all been campaigning,” I teased my Alpha section, “so I should put these classcards away. No recitation tonight.”

I got no reaction.

“Hmmm…you know, class, nobody said campaigning was easy. We don’t call this whole exercise ‘SUFF’RAGE’ because it’s fun,” I pitched my first joke.

No reaction.

“Anyway, in preparation for this Monday’s election, and this being our last meeting before May 9, I thought we should go over some basic election concepts, you know, just the essentials for the benefit of those of you who might have volunteered to become pollwatchers.”

Still no reaction.

“People out there, when they find out you are law students, they expect you to be able to answer some questions. So it’s always a good idea to be ready to educate the people, so to speak. They look up to you and you can’t disappoint them.”

A few yawns across the room.

I read somewhere that yawning is an involuntary reflex, triggered by the body trying to increase oxygen flow to the brain so as to wake up—or STAY awake. This class is slowly coming out of stupor.

“We don’t hold elections everyday but only once every three years. Of course, at the end of each exercise half the people or even more want to forget what just happened. So it’s to be expected that the level of public awareness about rudimentary electoral concepts is very low,” I started my intro.

“And that’s a shame,” I said, “because direct popular election is at the very heart of the concept of democracy—you know, ONE MAN, ONE VOTE.”

Miss Deema Niwala sprung to life, “sexism, Siiiir!!!”

“It’s good to see you’re still alive, Miss Deema,” I mused, “My God, you look terrible! You look like you got buried and fought your way out from under a mob of 30,000!”

“She really did, sir,” Miss Kata butted in, “she stood in for Senator Leila de Lima at the Takder Kordi Grand rally earlier this week!”

“So I witnessed,” I said, “I was leaning out of the terrace at the SM Skygarden with a pair of binoculars.”

“Oh, you were watching us from a distance, sir!” suddenly the whole class stirred.

“Yes, but I wasn’t getting crushed or getting wet and I had a cup of cappuccino in my hands. You EARN these things, you know,” I teased my students.

The mere mention of “Takder Kordi” seemed to animate them, triggering a wave of high-fiving all across the room.

“So as a reward to Miss Deema I will yield to her objection based on the ground of sexism and take back that ‘one-man-one-vote’ blurb,” I conceded, “in fact, I will let her do the thinking and let her supply us with a better phrase to summarize the core concept of democracy!”

“That’s a REWARD, sir??” Miss Deema frowned, and then rolled her eyes in a counterclockwise orbit.

“Well if anybody in class can do it, I bet it’s you. So take off the pink beanie and put on your thinking cap. Tell us, in a simple definitive phrase, what are elections all about in a thriving democracy?”

“Uh…how about ‘Obtaining the consent of the governed?” Miss Deema pitched, hardly batting an eyelash.

“That’s perfect. Just perfect. You see? Piece of cake,” I gave the girl her much-deserved compliment.

“Now can somebody tell me the significance of CONSENT, in general, not just limiting yourself to election laws? Yes, Mr. Juan Dimacaawat…”

“Sir, consent is an indispensable element of a CONTRACT. So indispensable, in fact, that without CONSENT FREELY GIVEN, there is no contract, even if all the other elements are present.”

“And what is a contract, Juan?”

“Sir, a contract is a ‘meeting of the minds’ to acknowledge an obligation regarding a particular object or matter, called the PRESTATION, and binding the parties to their agreement because of the existence of a JURIDICAL TIE,” Juan continued.

“This ‘juridical tie’ what does it consist of?” I followed up.

“It comprises all the laws defining the rights of the parties and all the procedures and formalities of controlling their relationship,” Juan said.

“That’s perfect, too, Juan. You may sit down,” then I started to tie up those two concepts: election and contract.

“An election is really a hiring process, class, you are hiring a contractual employee for a limited employment period of either 3 or 6 years only. So I want you to look at your election laws not as a freestanding subject in itself, but as the ‘juridical tie’ in the larger concept of establishing a contract. That contract is between us, the voters, and someone we will authorize to govern us, upon whom we will impose a very heavy obligation to serve us with competence and honesty."

“But what if one job applicant refuses to go through a job interview, sir?” Miss Laarnee Iwasan asked.

“I’d tell him to jump out through the window, Miss Laarnee, to hell with the sanamagan,” I minced no words, “if you want to govern the People, then you ask for THEIR consent on THEIR terms, not yours.” The class went a long, “Oooooohhh….!”

“Mind you, there’s one element your classmate Juan skipped in giving the definition of a contract. What is it, Miss Hannah Maala?”

“Valuable consideration, sir, a contract must be supported by something given in exchange for the object delivered, or the service rendered,” the girl from Buguias with a palindromic name said.

“Of course,” I said, “you cannot force anybody to serve against his will. That would be involuntary servitude. In fact, when we hire our officials by electing them, we actually PAY them handsomely. THAT is the correct interpretation of ‘valuable consideration’ when we’re going through an election process. We are the ones giving these officials money—millions of it—do you know what I’m trying to say, Miss Deema?”

“I have an idea, sir,” the girl everyone swears reminds them of Winona Ryder said, “candidates have it the OTHER way around, using ‘valuable consideration’ to procure the support of voters…”

“Spit out the common term, Miss Deema!” I barked.

“—to BUY VOTES, sir!”

“That’s more like it,” I said, “and these paltry few hundreds, or even thousands of pesos given out by candidates is what voters see. It’s ALL they see. They forget that we, the voters, give these candidates, once they get elected, more money in one month than most of you and I earn in three years.”

My students look at one another, then shrug their shoulders as if to say, “what’s new?”

“Now most of you look at vote-buying as a violation of election law. So you expect your COMELEC to do something about it—”

“Good luck!” Miss Deema interrupted.

“You don’t need luck on this one, Miss Deema. When people receive money from a candidate, they become beholden to him and, therefore, find it difficult to say no to him. So what just happened there, Jack?”

Jack Makataruz stood up, ran his fingers through his mohawk hair a few strokes then figured out, “sir, it corrupted their consent.”

“And what happens if consent is vitiated in a contract?”

“The contract is voidable, sir.” There erupted a lot of loud murmurings back and forth at Jack’s very controversial point. I had to bang the blackboard to refocus everybody.

“Realize one thing class, like I said, don’t look at your election laws in isolation. If you commit vote-buying, you not only violate election law, you invalidate your very contract with the people, for obtaining their consent through corruption. Even if you won, you should lose your office.”

“And money isn’t the only way the voters’ consent is vitiated, sir,” Miss Deema chimed in.

“Tell us, what are the other ways, Miss Deema,” I said.

“Candidates lie about their qualifications, sometimes they even fake their resumés, or they use goons to threaten or intimidate voters. Worse of all, they steal credit for publicly-funded projects, or welfare programs, putting beneficiaries in a difficult position. If they spurn these candidates, they might lose their benefits,” Miss Deema enumerated the different foul tactics, her classmates’ eyes growing ever bigger with each addition to the list.

“So just remember class, any time consent is vitiated by any of these means in an election, the contract can be rescinded by the People. I will not go into the details how.”

“Miss Deema gave quite a long list, sir, it will take an effort to remember all of it,” Jack said.

“My funny valentine is ugly,” I said.

“WHO’S ugly, sir??” Juan asked.

“It’s a mnemonic guide, people, sir is using a mnemonic guide,” Miss Deema caught on right away, “the first letters in what sir said are MFVIU.”

“And those letters stand for what, Miss Deema?” I asked, fully expecting her to know.

“MISTAKE, FRAUD, VIOLENCE, INTIMIDATION, UNDUE INFLUENCE, sir.

I let it sink slowly, giving my students ample quiet time to remember all the experiences they encountered on the campaign trail—and for them to realize how much easier it is to determine if something is wrong, even if you haven’t memorized your election law.

Then I gave them a provocative wink before saying, “class dismissed.”*