Aguilar .pdf Brokers Courting Voters

Philippine Political Science Journal
ISSN: 0115-4451 (Print) 2165-025X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rpsj20
Brokers courting voters: the alliance system in a

rural Philippine village
Filomeno V. Aguilar & Mary Grace Joyce P. Alis
To cite this article: Filomeno V. Aguilar & Mary Grace Joyce P. Alis (2018): Brokers courting
voters: the alliance system in a rural Philippine village, Philippine Political Science Journal, DOI:
10.1080/01154451.2018.1525511
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01154451.2018.1525511
Published online: 24 Sep 2018.
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PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL
https://doi.org/10.1080/01154451.2018.1525511
ARTICLE
Brokers courting voters: the alliance system in a rural

Philippine village
Filomeno V. Aguilara and Mary Grace Joyce P. Alisb
a
Department of History, Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City, Philippines; bAteneo Social Science
Research Center, Ateneo de Naga University, Naga City, Philippines
ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
In lieu of the market model of vote buying, this study probes how Political alliances; brokers;
brokers do their work of securing votes and what meanings peo- voter agency; rural poor;
ple attach to the giving and receiving of money during elections. local elections; meaning
Based on an ethnography of a rural village in Camarines Sur making; clientelism
province during the 9 May 2016 election campaign period, this
study points to the strategic importance of ad hoc alliance systems
that are not necessarily aligned with formal party structures.
Created to promote a local candidate, an alliance network relies
on village brokers, who engage in personalized communication
strategies to convince voters to support specific candidates.
However, competing alliance networks create deep social frac-
tures. Amid social tensions, brokers establish relationships with
voters in the context of which money is given not in exchange
for a vote but as a reward for joining an alliance. Voters, for their
part, regard money from their own moral perspectives. This study
advances a cultural model of alliance systems in which broker
agency, voter agency, and social relationships play key roles.
Introduction: pitfalls of the market model

Many assume that vote buying entails nothing more than the giving of money to a
voter, who then casts his or her vote for the candidate on whose behalf the money is
given. According to Frederic Schaffer and Andreas Schedler (2007, 17–18), this assump-
tion is based on a simple model of market exchange between the politician who
supplies the cash and the voter who makes no other consideration apart from the
monetary inducement. This transaction can be called core vote buying to distinguish it
from analogous transactions that do not involve cash but rather goods and services and
from transactions the goal of which is other than securing a vote for a candidate.1
This model of market exchange informs voter education campaigns in the Philippines.
These campaigns regard the poor as “desperate, short-sighted, and lacking in moral or
political discernment” and shackled to “the bondage of ignorance” (Schaffer 2007b, 172).
The poor are said to “sell their freedom” to those “who buy them in the hope of
regaining their investments when they get into power” (Ibana 1996, 130). These “middle-
and upper-class stereotypes of the poor” fail to appreciate the complexity of the reasons
CONTACT Filomeno V. Aguilar fvaguilar@ateneo.edu

© 2018 Philippine Political Science Association (PPSA)
2 F. V. AGUILAR AND M. G. J. P. ALIS
why people accept money or things from politicians, and as a result, people targeted by
voter education campaigns feel demeaned and insulted (Schaffer 2007b, 174). Moreover,
the campaign to accept the money but vote based on conscience can have counter-
intuitive results. A study by Hicken et al. (2015) in Sorsogon City during the 2013
municipal elections reveals that actually it increases the number of voters who accept
money and sell their votes; it also increases vote switching (Hicken et al. 2018). Clearly,
the political culture of vote buying and vote selling needs to be better understood.
For the market exchange model of vote buying to operate in reality, Schaffer and
Schedler (2007, 19) identify two necessary conditions. Objectively, a candidate who buys
an electoral vote must receive the electoral service paid for; otherwise, the transaction is
deemed a failure. Subjectively, both politician/candidate and citizen/voter must interpret
their relationship as a relation of exchange. However, the reality is messier than what
this market model presupposes. There is, in fact, uncertainty about the outcome of this
exchange, which as an illegal activity cannot be regulated by a formal contract.
Moreover, the secrecy of the ballot has been strengthened in the Philippines since the
automation of elections starting in 2010, which replaced the earlier Australian-type
ballot where voters wrote down the names of all candidates for whom they were casting
their vote. With automation and other strict rules (such as the ban on mobile phones
and all campaign paraphernalia inside polling precincts), problems of enforcement and
monitoring make vote buying a risky enterprise.2 Simeon Nichter (2008) regards it as an
“intriguing puzzle: how can vote buying coexist with the secret ballot?”3 Vote buyers
may utilize strategies to ensure voter compliance, including violating ballot secrecy or
devising informal sanctions at the community level, but there is no guarantee that
voters will comply with the exchange.
In view of the uncertainties surrounding the putative relationship between politician
and voter, it is not surprising that, out of 1,200 Filipino respondents in a 2001 nation-
wide survey, only 38% of poor voters (the class categories of “D” and “E” used by opinion
pollsters) who accepted money claimed that they voted for a candidate or set of
candidates because of the material inducement received (Schaffer 2007b, 173). Based
on this finding, Schaffer (ibid.) concluded that most poor voters “apparently exercised
their freedom of choice.” In a study of poor voters in Metro Manila after the May 2016
elections, Canare, Mendoza, and Lopez (2018, 70) found that 84.2% of respondents who
were offered money accepted it, but only 67.3% reported that they voted for the
candidate. The discrepancy between acceptance and voting rates as reported by
respondents is emblematic of the problems of monitoring and enforcement in the
market exchange model.
Despite the model’s limitations, it suggests nevertheless that the existence of a
“market for votes” means that voters are “independent enough to sell their votes”
(Lehoucq 2007, 44). If rigging election results is easy and affordable or if voters can be
coerced to vote according to the wishes of a candidate, politicians will opt for these
“more cost-efficient ways of stuffing the ballot box” than resort to the contingencies of
buying votes (ibid.). Thus, vote buying is a backhanded compliment that voters indeed
can exercise the freedom of making electoral choices.
Moreover, the 2001 Philippine survey data revealed that, of the 38% poor voters who
accepted money, one out of five said they would have voted for the same candidates
had they not been offered anything (Schaffer 2007b, 173). Consequently, “money
PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 3
appears to have influenced decisively the vote of only about 30 percent of the poor
voters who accepted it” (ibid.). Similarly, a study in Java during Indonesia’s 2014 general
election found that “for a significant proportion of voters, payments were simply an
added encouragement to cast a vote for a candidate they already preferred” (Aspinall
et al. 2017, 23). In the 2016 study in Metro Manila, among those who accepted money or
goods, 94.4% said they voted as expected “because the candidate was qualified, and
only 16.7 percent said that it was because of the offer” (Canare, Mendoza, and Lopez
2018, 70). Interestingly, 30.7% of those who did not vote for the candidate explained
that they were put off by the vote buying attempt, and 62.3% said they were not
impressed by the candidate’s qualifications (ibid., 71). Among respondents who were
asked indirectly if they knew others who received and accepted offers of money and
goods, 79.5% said those they knew voted because the candidate was qualified, while
37.7% said those others voted for the candidate because of the offer (ibid., 70).
These findings indicate that, if money was offered to sway voters to choose the
candidate who gave them money, apparently for the most part it was money not well
spent, from a buyer’s perspective, because the electoral service acquired by the buyer
need not have been paid for or because the money did not serve as a direct inducement to
obtain the desired result or because it produced the opposite outcome. These observa-
tions point to the need for in-depth understanding of how transactions with voters are
conducted to shed light on the dynamics of the giving and acceptance of money.
Brokerage in context
Studies from many countries around the world indicate similar logistics in the endeavor
to secure votes. Because candidates running for office beyond a single village cannot
possibly immerse themselves at all grassroots levels and get to know all individual
voters, by necessity they rely on a system of brokerage. A case study in Taiwan by
Wang and Kurzman (2007, 61, 69) demonstrates that candidates who seek to buy votes
mobilize an “extensive organization of brokers, each of whom will approach a small
number of voters”; brokers must be “trustworthy” and part of a network of “strong social
ties.” In Indonesia, vote buying is “highly fragmented, even atomized,” but “order within
the chaos” is achieved through “the presence of highly structured and systematic
brokerage networks” (Aspinall et al. 2017, 22). As Edward Aspinall and colleagues
(ibid., 22–23) observe, “One of the most robust findings of research on vote buying
virtually everywhere is that would-be vote buyers lean heavily upon existing social
networks and on the authority of locally influential brokers to make their efforts
effective,” even though “we can be reasonably sure that little or no transnational
learning takes place, given the illegality and covertness of the practice. Instead, parties
and candidates adopt similar strategies because they are responding to similar political
incentives and social structures.”
Yet, brokerage means different things to different people in different contexts. Some
studies highlight broker agency, with rent-seeking behavior as its premise. For instance,
Stokes et al. (2013, 76, 91) theorize that brokers “are locally networked and locally
powerful individuals” who have “their own interests and objectives”; they “trade off
the probability of electoral victory against other objectives, such as extracting rents or
building local power bases.” In the Indonesian context, Aspinall (2014) identifies three
types of brokers: “activist brokers, who support a candidate based on a political, ethnic,
religious, or other commitment; clientelist brokers, who desire long-term relations with
the candidate or with more senior brokers, with the goal of receiving future rewards;
and opportunist brokers, who seek short-term material gains during the course of a
campaign.”
Brokers who do perform their expected role “seek to activate norms of personal
obligation and reinforce the weight of those obligations through the personal delivery
of rewards” (Schaffer and Schedler 2007, 21). The aim in personalizing the exchange is to
attain a higher probability of the vote seller’s compliance. What brokers accomplish is a
clientelist exchange in which a personal obligation is extracted from the voter: in
exchange for material inducements coursed through the broker, the voter acquires a
moral debt, which they feel obligated to repay by voting for the candidate who supplies
the goods (Lawson and Greene 2014; Finan and Schechter 2012). The stress is on the
norm of reciprocity, which implies the existence of exchange.4
And, yet, despite the recourse to a localized network of trust and minimal broker
predation, the election outcome is not guaranteed. This residual uncertainty leads to the
question of the notion of loyalty or commitment on the part of the voter. In fact, it
highlights what Schaffer and Schedler (2007, 25–26) point out as the variety of meanings
that inhere in the acts of giving and receiving material inducements. This reality under-
scores that, “in order to assess empirical claims as well as normative judgments about
vote buying, we need to be aware of the gap between our idealized, commercial model
of vote buying and the way it actually works in the world” (Schaffer 2007a, 12). Indeed,
the actors who engage in the act of giving and receiving of money need not consider
themselves as engaging in a simple relation of exchange – which, if applicable, totally
undermines the market model. This observation demands that the meaning system of
brokers and voters need to be understood on their own terms.
Moreover, the act of giving and receiving money assumes different meanings
depending on political context across countries and even within the same country.
The Philippines, where political parties have not been sufficiently institutionalized,
follows the open-list electoral system. Indonesia, too, has adopted this system. In
contrast, countries in Latin America practice the closed-list representation system
(Nichter 2008; Gans-Morse, Mazzuca, and Nichter 2014; Daniel and Nichter 2016). The
context of brokerage and voting in the Philippines is thus markedly different from those
in Latin America. It follows that the lessons in one context cannot be transferred to
another without fundamental modifications. As Aspinall et al. (2017, 24) put it forcefully:
“much of the recent literature on clientelism has drawn examples from political systems,
especially in Latin America, which are relatively party-focused, giving rise to assumptions
that parties are generally the actors that count in vote buying, and that brokers are
agents of parties.” These assumptions do not hold in the Philippines, which requires its
own in-depth analysis.
In the Philippine context, few studies have delved into how vote buying “actually
works.” The closest studies on this subject, The Vote of the Poor by the Institute of
Philippine Culture (IPC) (2005) and [De]scribing Elections: A Study of Elections in the
Lifeworld of San Isidro (Alejo, Rivera, and Valencia 1996), have focused on poor voters
but not on the mechanics and intersubjective meanings of vote buying. There has also
been no study of brokerage networks. In this light, this study seeks to answer two
interrelated research questions: How do brokers do their work of securing votes? What
meanings are attached to the giving and receiving of money during elections?
Accordingly, this study probes how networks of brokers are formed, how brokers go
about campaigning for votes, and how ordinary voters respond to these dynamics
insofar as core vote buying is concerned.
Our data point to the strategic importance of ad hoc alliance systems that are not
necessarily aligned with formal party structures. Created at the start of a campaign to
promote a local candidate, an alliance network relies on village brokers, who are
ordinary residents of the village who engage in highly personalized communication
strategies to convince voters to support specific candidates. However, there are social
costs to elections because competing alliance networks create deep social fractures.
Amid social tensions, brokers establish relationships with voters and follow culturally
meaningful practices in the context of which money is given not as an inducement and
never as an explicit exchange for a vote, but as a reward for joining an alliance. In a
word, brokers do not buy votes: they court voters. For their part, voters regard the
receiving of money from their own moral perspective, which may justify either the
acceptance or rejection of the money offered. Thus, this study advances a cultural
model of alliance systems in which broker agency, voter agency, and social relationships
play key roles.
Barangay Salugsog and the study’s informants

This study, which is part of a larger study on vote buying by the Institute of Philippine Culture
(IPC), Ateneo de Manila University, focuses on a rural barangay in Camarines Sur province.
Ethnographic fieldwork in the village, which will be referred to by the fictitious name of
Salugsog, started in January 2016 in the lead up to the 9 May 2016 national and local elections;
fieldwork was terminated at the end of that election month. Unstructured interviews were
conducted with village officials – including the barangay captain who will be called Kapitana in
this study – and ordinary residents in Barangay Salugsog as well as municipal hall employees.
In addition, 30 informants were interviewed using a structured questionnaire, their selection to
be discussed shortly.
Like many other rural villages in the province, Barangay Salugsog is primarily agricul-
tural; its vast plains are devoted to rice farming, and uphill portions are dedicated to
growing coconuts. Two small rivers run through Salugsog. Despite its remote location, a
decent road network bisects the village, making it accessible through the typical modes of
public transportation of jeepney, tricycle, and habal-habal (private motorcycle used to
ferry passengers “door-to-door,” as the locals say). The village center, located adjacent to
the road system, has a health center, a day care center, an elementary school, a high
school, and soon a community college in view of the K-12 Basic Education Program
adopted by the Philippines in 2013. The village also boasts of a recently constructed
two-story barangay hall, in addition to a multipurpose hall. A Catholic church is the hub of
parish life, along with five chapels that are spread out in outlying sitios (territorial enclaves
within a barangay). Electricity is found only in the village center.
Occupying an area measuring over 1,000 hectares, Salugsog has a total population of
approximately 3,000 persons living in 570 households, some 261 of which (or 46%) are
situated in the center, while the rest are found in the interior. Despite the geographic
dispersal of houses, everyone knows everyone in the village. Houses near the road tend to
be made of concrete or of concrete combined with some other sturdy materials, while
houses in the interior are visibly flimsy, using scrap wood, bamboo, and sawali. The
municipal office lists Salugsog as having a poverty incidence of 84.2%, somewhat higher
than the town’s average rate of 78.6%. However, based on the October 2015 “Listahanan”
or the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction of the Department of
Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), 226 households or nearly 40% of all households
in Salugsog are poor.5 Of these poor households, 142 (or 63%) live in the village interior,
and only 84 (37%) are found in the village center. Households identified as poor are
recipients of the DSWD’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) or the Conditional
Cash Transfer Program, a programmatic distributive strategy (cf. Stokes et al. 2013, 7–10).6
The 30 informants for this study, who had to be registered voters, were selected from
among the village’s 4Ps recipients through purposive sampling. They were not intended
to be statistically representative of the village population. By design, females comprised
half of the 30 informants and males comprised the other half. They were also selected
based on the following age specifications to get a broad section of the community: 10
informants in the 18–24 age bracket; eight in the 25–39 age bracket; six in the 40–59 age
bracket; and another six, 60 years old and above. No criteria were specified for occupa-
tion and employment. The structured interviews were completed in early March 2016
before the elections were held; hence, no data on actual voting behavior were obtained.
The informants were asked about several topics, but this article discusses only those
pertaining to vote buying.
Alliance systems and political divisions

Because of the prevalence of poverty, the provision of material goods and services to
the needy has become inseparable from the practice of politics in Salugsog and in the
wider municipality to which this village belongs. Any commodity or service is easily
politicized. On separate occasions, two different municipal mayors, during their respec-
tive terms in office, donated land in two different parts of the village where poor families
were able to build their houses. During the May 2016 elections, a candidate for mayor
promised that a piece of land would be distributed to supporters, but this declaration
was not fulfilled because the candidate did not win. In February 2016, the municipality’s
Rural Health Unit turned over several toilet bowls to the barangay health center. Amid
the election season, some residents alleged that the barangay captain jettisoned the list
of intended beneficiaries to benefit supporters who resided in the village center, thus
depriving the legitimate recipients; the Kapitana countered that the village council made
a priority list without politicking, implying the detractors were the ones politicizing the
issue. The reality, however, is that many residents feel that politics results in either their
inclusion in or exclusion from the distribution of goods and services and invitations to
social events sponsored by elected officials.
At the time of this study, the two major political factions in the village were
distinguishable in terms of their alliance with the incumbent mayor, who was aligned
with the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) of Vice President Jejomar Binay Jr., who ran
for president in the 2016 elections. The mayor was on his third term and not eligible to
run for the same office, but he was campaigning for his preferred successor. The mayor’s
alliance was not the network to which the barangay captain belonged; Kapitana was
associated with political elements in the town center who were linked to the Liberal
Party (LP) of outgoing President Benigno S. Aquino III. However, because the municipal
LP was aligned with Gov. Miguel Luis “Migz” Villafuerte, who supported Sen. Grace Poe’s
candidacy for president, the LP network in the municipality junked the LP presidential
candidate, Secretary of the Interior and Local Government and former senator Manuel
“Mar” Roxas II in favor of Poe.
Thus, the local political division is not strictly party-based, because parties are over-
ridden by personal alliances (magkaalyado) – hearkening back to the alliance networks
that characterized leadership and which pervaded these islands prior to the start of the
colonial age in the sixteenth century (Junker 2000). In the precolonial past, however,
each chiefdom was deemed as united under its chief, who was allied to other chiefs in a
wider alliance network. In the politics of the present era, a village such as Salugsog can
be rent internally by opposing alliances, with the chief of each alliance linked to an
external political alliance network that officially may be labeled as a party. Because of
the multiparty system, the alliance systems may mix and match the candidates for
national positions depending on the governor’s preferences and alliances, and the
hybrid electoral slate can be carried during the campaign from the provincial down to
the barangay level, as in Salugsog’s case.7 Furthermore, despite some sort of party
structure, the emphasis is not on political parties per se but on individual candidates,
given the open-list electoral system.
Political factors are intensely personalistic. The practice of setting political boundaries
of exclusion and inclusion in Barangay Salugsog mimics that of the municipality.
Informants tell the story of how Vice President Binay, together with municipal officials
and the local congressman, visited the village in 2014 to inaugurate the new road that
traversed the town as well as to hand out cash to senior citizens and distribute groceries to
some families. However, when President Aquino and LP candidates visited the munici-
pality in February 2016, they were not welcomed and entertained by the mayor, who,
informants suggested, prevented the president from setting foot on their village.
The extreme personalism of local politics tends to create political polarization around
particular alliances that splinter the village community. As Kerkvliet (1990, 202) has observed
about social networks and alliances, “these connections do soften and moderate tensions”
across class and status divides that stretch to the world outside a rural village, but these
linkages also “can divide people in the same class or status.” These divisions become
publicly apparent during electoral contests. When villagers in Salugsog feel strongly
about their respective candidates, relationships among family members, relatives, and
neighbors are strained because the disagreements over politics are taken as a personal
affront. As a 31-year-old male resident of the village explains, in the course of a regular
conversation, one may simply voice one’s displeasure over a candidate, and the other
person in a conversation may not say anything but he or she may already feel offended
(nagkukulog na an boot) because the candidate who has been criticized happens to be his or
her candidate (manok, literally, cock).8 As a result, members of the same social unit who take
opposing sides in an election cease to talk to and begin to ignore each other, engage in
disparaging gossip (nagraraotan), and exclude their nonallies from vital information and
services. In one family, the husband, a cousin of a village official, beat up his wife who would
not acquiesce to vote for his mayoral candidate, who was being championed by the village
official. In other cases, neighbors who stray to the topic of their opposing candidates get
into heated arguments (nagkakainitan). Local politics are highly disruptive of social
relationships.
In this context, the social researcher needed to be very careful not to be perceived as
favoring any faction. Despite all the caution, initially we were perceived as partisan;
eventually, we would like to think that they saw us as aboveboard.9 Nonetheless,
residents remained circumspect about the information they were willing to share with
us. An informant’s self-definition of caution is an important boundary in data collection,
which ought to be respected. Consequently, some of the stories could not be probed
further than what we would have desired. Nonetheless, sufficient information was
gathered from the ethnographic research to provide an understanding of how vote
buying, if we may call it that, actually worked in Barangay Salugsog in 2016.
“Meetings” as opening salvos

Although the official campaign period had not begun, in the morning of 6 February 2016 (a
Sunday), one candidate for municipal mayor and candidates for municipal councilors,
together with a local member of the House of Representatives, went to the village and
held a “meeting” – the term that villagers used to refer to a campaign or political rally during
which candidates would introduce themselves and deliver their pahayag (statement or
manifesto) to the public. As expected in such gatherings, aside from song numbers meant
to entertain the audience, the candidates distributed bags containing 3 kilos of rice, instant
noodles, and canned goods; campaign paraphernalia, such as postcards, pamaypay (native
fan), leaflets, and calendars with the face of the candidate; sample ballots; and money worth
P200 inside a white envelope. A resident revealed that the barangay captain had prese-
lected the invitees, presumably supporters who belong to her alliance network; each invitee
was provided with a stub, which was presented at the entrance to the venue. Some villagers
who were excluded from the event reported that, to prevent the uninvited from entering
the site, barangay officials posted informal sentries outside the venue to shoo away “non-
supporters” and prying neighbors. The invited residents did not disclose to other villagers
that during the event the attendees were given a sample ballot, instructed to accomplish
the ballot, and told to insert it in a machine, after which they were given another P200. After
the event, some felt anxious and afraid because of threats that they would be jailed if they
attempted to change their vote on election day – a clear instance of intimidation to enforce
compliance.
Nineteen days later, also before the start of the official campaign period, the rival
mayoral candidate, together with the aspiring municipal councilors, also held a meeting
on the basketball court of one of Salugsog’s sitios. Each of the candidates spoke,
introduced themselves, and shared their plans (mga patara-tara) with the audience.
They distributed coffee as well as campaign paraphernalia, such as calendars and
leaflets. On the morning of 4 March 2016, this political network conducted a medical
mission in the village, offering free check-up and immunization of children, distributing
medicines, and providing free dental services. These events were not strictly cordoned
off as that of the opposing camp, although for a succeeding social event held in the
municipal center, only the allies were invited.
The two camps evidently had somewhat different strategies in building an alliance
network, with the incumbent barangay captain opting to be secretive, systematic, and
intimidating, in contrast to the other side – which was not in control of village politics
but was supported by the incumbent municipal government – that decided to have an
open meeting and offered a social service to the community. After these meetings the
hard work of campaigning and securing votes by expanding one’s political alliance in
the village commenced. This work hinged upon the system of brokerage established by
those at the helm of each of these alliance systems in the village. It was a close contest
for the mayorship because both candidates were running for the first time.
Brokers’ recruitment and their motivations

In Barangay Salugsog, the organization of an alliance system to promote a mayoral
candidate begins with the candidate seeking out someone among the village residents
who possesses power or influence to serve as village campaign chief who will supervise
a network of brokers. According to the coordinator of one of the local political factions,
the candidate for the municipal mayor’s position visits the house of the barangay
captain (even if, by law, barangay officials are prohibited from engaging in partisan
campaigning) to discuss their possible alignment in a forthcoming election, a process
akin to courtship. If the barangay head belongs to a different political configuration, the
candidate seeks out a barangay leader, usually a former barangay captain. If the alliance
with the municipal candidate simply needs to be formalized, the barangay leader may
be the one who goes to the candidate’s office or house. Among other issues, the
candidate for municipal mayor discusses the key candidates in the political network,
such as those for president, vice president, congressman, governor, and provincial board
members, who may come from the same political party or different parties.
Once agreement is firmed up between the mayoral candidate and the village cam-
paign chief, the latter recruits what are known locally as “coordinators,” who ideally
represent the geographical dispersion of the barangay. These coordinators are tasked to
organize the political activities during the campaign. Crucially, each coordinator recruits
and designates several “community leaders” or “zone leaders” – usually selected on the
basis of blood relation, affinal ties, or fictive kinship relationship (e.g. kumpadre or
kumadre in a compadrazgo), that is, with a preexisting basis for trust. These ward leaders
speak (pakiulay) with family members and other village residents to persuade them to
support a set of candidates and join the leader’s alliance network; they are the brokers in
the vote buying enterprise. This process enables “leaders” to produce an evolving list of
expected voters, which guides coordinators in assessing the prospective votes their
candidates will get in the village.10
The brokers in the May 2016 elections varied in their occupational status: barangay
kagawad (councilor), barangay tanod (sentry), barangay health worker, farm laborer or
caretaker, construction worker, or housewife. Most were either elementary or high
school graduates, with only a handful able to reach the college level. These intermedi-
aries did not necessarily enjoy high status in the community, as Schaffer and Schedler
(2007, 22) highlighted, but rather were ordinary villagers who had “preexisting social
relationships” with fellow villagers and whose greatest plus factor was their “residential
location” (Wang and Kurzman 2007, 70).
Some brokers were serving as campaigners for the first time, including farm laborers
and housewives, while others had been deployed in this role in previous elections, a
handful since the 2000s. Whether or not an individual would agree to campaign for a
candidate depended on the person’s liking or preference for the candidate, the receipt
of help from the candidate in the past coupled with the desire to return the favor (utang
nin boot), and the relationship with the person asking him or her to be involved in the
campaign. Forms of assistance valued in this village include helping defray hospitaliza-
tion and medical, education, and transportation expenses.
The long-serving election campaign leaders in the village have not remained within
the same political alliance, with some shifting to the opposing faction due to disaffec-
tion with their former alliance, especially if the expected assistance was not received.11 A
48-year-old female coordinator explained her move: “As in the case of clothes, you
would also like something new . . . I once approached [the outgoing mayor], I didn’t
receive anything. With the new one at present, everything is well managed” (Kun sa
bado, gusto mo naman nin bago . . . Nagrani ako kaidto ki [outgoing mayor],dae man ako
natawan. Iyan ba-go ngonian puro marhay an padalagan). A 57-year-old male coordina-
tor described the various shifts in his political campaign career as well as his concern for
the “performance” of the municipal official that serves as guide in his choice of political
network:
I have been a candidate’s coordinator for over ten years. The very first time was when [the
outgoing mayor] first ran for office. I was a barangay coordinator then. During the next
election I shifted to the opponent’s side; in the end, the mayor’s performance was good.
After the election, the mayor still welcomed me. In 2010 I lied low because I was tired.
During this 2016 elections, I am working again as coordinator. I will list names, and then we
will talk to them to vote for the candidate.
Lampas sampulong taon naman akong coordinator kan kandidato. An pinakaenot si enot na
laban ni [outgoing mayor]. Barangay coordinator ako kadto. Nagbalyo ako sa kalaban niya
kadtong sunod na eleksyon; alagad sa bandang huri, magayon an performance ni mayor.
Pakatapos kan eleksyon, winelcome man giraray ako ni mayor. Kan 2010, nag-lie low muna
ako ta napagal ako. Ngonian na 2016 elections,an trabaho ko coordinator man. Malista ako
nin tao, tapos kakaulayon mi an tao na botohan an kandidato.
As far as the brokers are concerned, the alliance system is not permanent. They stay in or
move out of a political network for various reasons, which include the satisfaction of
clientelist concerns as well as the desire for progress in their locality as gauged from a
candidate’s “performance” in office. When campaign promises are not fulfilled, they
exact some form of accountability by turning away from a politician, saying, sawa na
(fed up). Indeed, some leaders assert, “If you’re a candidate, you must find a way to truly
fulfill your promise” (Kun kandidato ka, maggibo ka nin paagi na an pangako mo
gigibuhon mo talaga). Such brokers may be of the clientelist type, but within that
framework assert their expectations.
However, most of the coordinators and ward leaders say they engage in campaign
work as a way of showing support for the candidates they “trust” and believe can
improve their barangay and their lives, a sentiment consistent with the activist broker.
As one coordinator explained, “I agreed [to campaign] because . . . I like the program of
government, such as the improvement of the school . . . What I’m doing is true to my
heart, because if the school if really improved, the whole community will benefit”
(Nagtugot ako ta . . . magayon an sa iyang programa, arog kan improvement kan

eskwelahan . . . Udok sa boot ko ining ginigibo ko, ta pag naipaayos an eskwelahan,
kaibanan kaiyan an bilog na banwaan).
However, whether clientelist or activist, some brokers also see their engagement in the
campaign as a gamble (sugal) because they put their trust in someone without having
100% assurance that their candidate will win (cf. Aguilar 1994; Aguilar 2007). For them, it is
either a win-win or lose-lose scenario, given the factionalized politics and the possible
exclusion they will experience should their candidate lose. Still, an older leader muses that,
through his political engagement, he has been able to observe the behavior of people (Sa
parte ko maogma an naging partisipasyon ko, ta naaraman ko an ugali kan mga tao). At the
very least, one can say that most brokers are not simply mercenaries, merely interested in
the “material rewards, either for themselves or for the social network they represent,” as
Aspinall (2014) observes in Indonesia; the brokers in Salugsog see their participation in the
campaign as a meaningful, if also rewarding but risk-filled, activity.
Moreover, the work is not compensated with a salary, although these campaigners
receive an “allowance,” which serves to make up for their foregone income as farmers,
construction laborers, or barangay tanod. For unemployed community members, particu-
larly housewives, campaign work becomes a source of cash income. During the campaign
for the May 2016 elections, the mayoral candidate provided ward leaders and lead coordi-
nators an “allowance” to cover transportation, daily food consumption, farm fertilizer, hog
fertilizer, and other immediate needs whenever they visited the candidate’s office. The
amount they received ranged from P200 to P500.12 These leaders were also prioritized in the
distribution of groceries during political rallies. Others who were tasked to post tarpaulins
and other campaign materials were given some payment for the work done.
Brokers’ organization and vote-getting strategies

During the campaign for the May 2016 elections, two rival sets of brokers operated in
Barangay Salugsog, each with a slightly different organizational set up. On one side was
the political network at the helm of which was the Kapitana. Under her were seven
campaign coordinators, one for each of what they drew as the barangay’s seven major
divisions. Under each coordinator were 10 leaders; each leader was meant to recruit 10
voters. Excluding the campaigners, this network would have generated 700 recruits;
however, the official target was 600 votes. They expected 100 voters would become
balimbing (turncoat), which suggested a de facto noncompliance rate of 14.3%. The
other political network had a former barangay captain as chief of the village alliance,
under whom were six campaign coordinators. Each coordinator was tasked to recruit 80
family leaders, each of whom was tasked to obtain 14 supporters. This network could
generate 1,120 votes, but its expected total number of votes was set at 800; in effect, its
anticipated noncompliance rate was 28.6%. The two political camps diverged in their
expected outcomes; interestingly, the tighter structure under the current barangay
captain expected a noncompliance rate that was half that of the loosely organized
network under the former barangay captain. Rather than deny it, both camps worked
with the assumption that some voters inevitably will fail to deliver the expected votes.
The ward leaders began their house-to-house visits to canvass voters in January, although
the official start of the campaign period for local positions did not begin until 26 March 2016.
They campaigned primarily for candidates vying for local positions (district representative and
municipal officials), while campaigning for candidates for national positions occurred as an
add-on during the political rallies of local candidates.
Apparently targeting the mass of voters in the village who were undecided or not
clearly “marked” (markado) as belonging to an alliance (kaalyado), the ward leaders
initially produced a list of names of kin and neighbors they would persuade to vote for
their political network’s candidates, sometimes through house visits, sometimes through
chance encounters on the street. The leaders sought to establish a relationship with the
potential voter, communicating constantly in a process called panunuyo (courtship),
while others described their task simply as “talking to people” (pakiulay sa tao). A 61-
year-old ward leader described their task as appealing to the voters, stating, “I don’t
pressure them” (Dae ko man sinda pigpipirit). A 40-year-old female campaign leader
narrated, “I started to draw up a list since the meeting [in March 2016]. Whenever I meet
the person, we chat. Come election day my list is complete” (Naglista na ako poon kan
pag-meeting [March 2016]. Pag nakakasabatan ko, nag-uulay kami. Kaya pag-abot kan
eleksyon kompleto na an listahan ko).
As in a courtship, the suitor would like to assess the chances of an affirmative response.
To this end, as a middle-aged male voter put it, “They sleuth on you to determine if you
have firmed up your mind and who it is you will really vote for” (Titiktikan ka ninda para
maaraman kun matatag ka asin kun siya talaga an iboboto mo). In this relational context,
money and/or goods were given to the voter, like a reward for joining the alliance. But if
the voter was vacillating, nothing was given – as the same informant above made clear
(Pero kun nagduduwang isip ka, dae ka naman tatawan). However, the cash was not given
to the voter explicitly in exchange for a vote. As a 50-year-old male campaigner narrated,
somewhat incoherently and defensively but making the point that he did not engage in
outright vote buying or in “snatching” (kukuonun) votes:
During the campaign I was carrying P50,000, P20,000, about that amount . . . Here’s the way
it worked. It didn’t mean that what I was giving them – it wasn’t for buying votes. It’s like
saying, for example, you’ll only give, say, P200. “This one, please don’t say, that this one I’m
giving you, is because of the vote, that I’m buying your vote. No. This money that I’m giving
you, because . . . there is no written agreement that this money being given . . . like for
spending, it’s up to you how to spend it, buy some snacks.” It’s like that. “But this money I’m
giving . . . it’s not that I’m getting your vote.”
An dara ko po kadto nung nangangampanya mga P50,000, P20,000, arog kaiyan . . . Arog
ngani po, bako man nin ngaya idto an natatao ko po sa sainda, bako man ni ning pambakal
nin boto. Garo ngaya nagsasabi ngaya halimbawa, tatawan mo lang nin ngaya P200, “Ito po
bako man nin sasabihin nindo na ito tinao ko saindo puro dahil an boto, babakalun ko an
boto nindo. Bako. Ito ining kwartang tinatao ko sa indo, ta . . . mayo man gayo sa kasuratan
na an idtong kwarta na itinatao . . . garo para gastos, yung bahala na kamo maggastos, bakal
nin snackan.” Arog kaiyan. “Pero ining tinatao ko ning kwarta . . . bako itong kukuonun ko an
boto nindo.”
Nevertheless, the voter would be asked to sign a piece of paper to indicate receipt of the
money. This requirement might well be a means to prevent broker fraud. As one leader
stated, “The money entrusted to me was P500 for each person [on the list]; but the
person to whom you give the money must affix his or her signature beside that person’s
name. . . Yes, it’s not possible for us to sign it because it will be obvious because our
writing styles differ” (An kwarta na itinao sa sako limang gatos. Pero may pangaran asin
pirma an tinatawan mo. . . Oo, dae man pwede kami magunoy kaiyan, ta risa man ta iba-
iba an kuyan kan surat).
Although instituted for auditing purposes, the voter’s act of signing could also be
interpreted as a form of commitment to vote for the candidate on whose behalf the
money was given. In the words of a 26-year-old female voter, “Here if you have signed
on that paper where they get those signatures, you are really obligated . . . in how you
will vote” (digdi kaya pag nakapirma ka na duman sa pigpapapirmahan bagang ano,
obligado ka na talaga . . . kung saen ka na maboto). Because of this system of listing
names, residents expressed awareness that the political networks in the village already
knew who would vote for whom even before the election day, and they could already
predict the number of votes. As the female voter quoted above put it, “They really try to
make sure . . . because they don’t . . .give [money] if they’re not yet sure [of a person’s
vote]. That’s how they do it. They remember because there’s the signature. They make
them sign, so they know already, they have budgeted . . . how many will vote for them in
this barangay . . . They already know” (Pigsigurado naman talaga ninda . . . ta dae man
sinda . . . nagtatao baga pag dae pa sigurado. Arog kaiyan. Basta tanda naman ninda ta
pirma baga. Pigpapapirma na, o aram na ninda, budget na ninda . . . kung pirang maboto
sa inda halimbawa digdi sa barangay . . . aram na ninda). A 50-year-old male voter
expressed a similar sentiment: “They are able to survey where the money they release
goes, that is why they know who and how many persons to whom they have given cash,
that is why they can already compute” (Kaya nasu-survey po ninda an binubutasan po
kaya ninda na kwarta, kaya aram na po ninda kung siisay asin kung pirang tawo an
tinawanan, kaya naco-compute na po ninda). To the voters, the village felt politically
transparent – in their terms, “budgeted” or “surveyed,” to indicate quantitative knowl-
edge not accessible to them but to the political networks that operated in their midst.
Nevertheless, absolute certainty could not be guaranteed. Some informants sug-
gested that some names on the list were those of family members who were not
registered voters, raising the possibility of either broker fraud or the household head’s
lack of truthfulness.
Strategies at the end of the race

As the election day drew nearer, tension in the village became more palpable.13 Because
of incertitude, two weeks before the election day, ward leaders revisited the houses of
supporters to lock in their votes. They also visited non-supporters in the hope of
swaying their electoral choices, bargaining with them by doubling or tripling the
monetary offer to meet a family’s urgent need – actions seen as invasion of a turf,
which heightened animosities in this village.
In one instance, one political alliance offered to support the hospitalization of a
barangay health worker’s daughter who figured in a vehicular accident; despite the
desperate need, the mother did not accept the offer out of fear that it would come with
political obligations they could not fulfill. She explained, “I did not accept the money
because my family was not thinking of politics now, but rather the hospitalization of my
child. I am also already sure that I will vote for the [opponent]” (Dae ko kinua an kwarta
ta bako man pulitika an iniisip kan pamilya mi ngonian, kundi an pag paospital kan aki ko.
Sigurado naman ako na si [opponent] an iboboto ko). On a separate occasion, this

opposing candidate for mayor visited the family and gave them P1,800, perhaps given
the knowledge of her voting preference, an act that could also serve as a shining
example to the village of this candidate’s “generosity”; they also gave her P400 on
behalf of the candidates for municipal council positions. On election day, however, the
mother was not able to cast her vote because her name could not be found on the
official list of voters, even though she had the requisite biometrics taken.
On the day before the casting of votes, the wife of the incumbent mayor, along with
the brokers, distributed envelopes (each containing P500) and packed meals at the
house of the former barangay official who headed the political network in the village.
This was a strategy to consolidate the vote of the candidate’s supporters. The other
camp held a similar gathering in the Kapitana’s brother’s house, where invited suppor-
ters were given a stub in exchange for money worth P500 and a meal. Supporters were
also given free eyeglasses. That one faction could not be outdone by the other sug-
gested that, at this late stage of the campaign, the competition for the mayor’s position
was extremely stiff, which explained the giving of money outside the context of house
visits. As a 56-year-old male voter said, money would be given “when the race was tight,
when both candidates seem strong” (pag giripitan na, pag makusog pareho an laban).
Indeed, more money circulated during the May 2016 elections than in 2010 and 2013
when the outgoing mayor was running for reelection unopposed and had the advan-
tage of the incumbent. Moreover, as a 57-year-old male campaign leader put it, the 2016
elections was a contest on who would be the highest bidder, with the huge influx of
money to the municipality coming from external (“national”) sources: “The vote buying
now is terrible – massive vote buying because funding comes from the national [level]”
(Grabe talaga an vote buying ngonian – massive vote buying ta an funding hale sa
national). Others speculated that the money came from illegal activities such as gam-
bling, illegal drugs, and corruption. As a result, many voters were lapping up the cash:
“Things are done differently now. If you are beaten in the money, you lose the vote. As
they say, the highest bidder, the winner” (Iba na an kalakaran ngonian. Kun nadaog sa
kwarta, daog man sa boto. Sabi ngani, the highest bidder, the winner).
The flooding of the village with cash did not reduce the risk of noncompliance. Thus,
as an added measure, one political network was accused by its opposing camp of
requiring those who received money to copy their ballot’s serial number and give this
information to the network. Some voters wrote the serial number on their hands using
ballpoint pen, while others used their mobile phones illegally to record the number. The
implication was that their ballots could be traced easily and their votes revealed. To
ordinary voters, the threat could be real enough. As another form of electoral surveil-
lance, on the election day, some brokers acted as poll watchers (in exchange for P500 for
this work), their presence meant to remind voters of electoral “agreements” that they
had de facto entered into.
On election day, the barangay coordinators of the rival political camps cooked meals
(naghanda), which included roasted pig (lechon baboy), serving a feast for supporters
reminiscent of the “epic” breakfast enjoyed by supporters during election campaigns for
members of parliament in England in the 1780s–1860s (O’Gorman 1992, 85). In
Salugsog, some of the meals were packed for those who did not have the time to sit
down for a proper meal. In the village, however, access to the meal came after casting
one’s ballot, a social measure to identify who actually voted for the candidate on the
assumption that if one voted otherwise one would not have the gumption to get food
and participate in the sociality that food sharing implied.
Voter views on vote buying and selling

Notwithstanding the variety of campaign strategies witnessed in the village of Salugsog,
voters felt free to vote for the candidates of their choice. Many stated that the choice of
candidates to vote for was theirs to make and no one else, a decision-making process
that “the heart” would embolden them to make (napupusuan).14 They would select the
deserving one, according to their own knowledge (pagka-aram). They could not be
dictated upon (dae man kami nadidiktahan).
Some pointed to the democratic system and the guaranteed freedoms as reasons
for why they felt free. “Of course, because we live in a democratic nation, don’t we?
It’s not possible that I dictate to you that you should vote for this candidate. We are
the ones who decide who of the candidates we like” (Siyempre, dahil nasa democratic
nation baga kita. Dae man pwedeng sinasabihan kita na ining kandidatong ini an
saimong botohan. Magboboot man kita kun siisayan gusto tang kandidato), said a 38-
year-old male voter. “We have free will, freedom of speech, freedom of religion,
freedom of words, don’t we, eh? We are the ones who should choose” (Ay, igwa man
baga kita nin free will, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of words.
Kita an dapat magpili), declared a 67-year-old female. Despite the sway of money
(nagkakaperahan), some voters said they retained their freedom because “the elec-
tions are not extremely filthy” (dae man masyadong maati an eleksyon), which
indicated that the extent of this illegal activity had not distorted people’s freedom
to make electoral choices. In any event, the assertion of freedom suggested the
voters’ belief in the intrinsic secrecy of the ballot, which in turn implied challenges in
monitoring the compliance of those who accepted money and other goods from
candidates.
The structured interviews with 30 key informants in Barangay Salugsog (not a random
sample) revealed a divided response to the question of whether giving money to voters
was vote buying or helping the people (See Table 1). Roughly one in three said that the
act was vote buying; in other words, this segment of the community perceived the
giving of money, despite the niceties, as an intentional act of buying votes. At the same
time, the same proportion stated that it was a form of help, with no clear stress on the
voter’s choice of candidate. However, close to one-fourth stated that the giving of
money meant both: to help the poor and to buy votes.
Table 1. Responses to the question of whether giving money to voters is vote buying or helping the
people, rural barangay, Camarines Sur, May 2016 elections.
Vote Helping the No
Age buying People Both vote buying and helping the people Answer Total
18–24 years 3 5 2 0 10
25–39 years 5 0 3 0 8
40–59 years 1 3 1 1 6
60 years and above 2 3 1 0 6
Total 11 11 7 1 30
When the respondents were asked about the implication of accepting money, one-
third was unwavering in saying that it was tantamount to selling one’s vote. Two out of
five replied that the acceptance of money did not mean the selling of one’s vote. Finally,
more than one-fourth of the respondents, especially those in the younger age brackets,
had no answer to the question (See Table 2). Thus, only a small fraction of the village
community equated the acceptance of money to selling one’s vote, from which it may
be inferred that the norm of reciprocity is not necessarily applicable in cases where
money was received; it underscores the uncertainty involved in vote buying.15
Those who stated unequivocally that giving money in an election was vote buying
condemned the act as illegal. “It’s wrong to buy votes” (Daen data an pagbakal nin boto),
asserted a 21-year-old female, adding “It is not for life that one can get money from
them. What I prefer is that I be given proper assistance” (Dae habang buhay na makukua
mo iyan sainda. An gusto na maayos an tabang an itatao sakuya). Another informant, a
23-year-old female, cherished her process of thinking through the choice of candidate,
which would be cast aside if she accepted money: “It would disregard your effort to
know and think who among the candidates you should really vote for” (Nabalewala na
lang si pigparaaram, si pigparaisip mo kung siisay talaga an bobotohon mo). Because the
giving and acceptance of money was seen as involving an exchange, it impinged on
one’s freedom to choose: “I’m afraid to accept money because, in my thinking, if you
accept, that’s where you’ll be even if that’s not what my inmost being desires” (takot po
kaya ako magkuang kwarta ta an isip ko, pag nagkua ka, duman ka na maski dae udok sa
boot ko), explained a 43-year-old female. A 19-year-old male voter asserted that the
electoral fight should be within the bounds of the law: “if they win . . . through illegal
[means] . . . because they bought the votes, that should not be” (guminana sinda . . . sa
kuyan illegal . . . ta binakal ninda an boto, dae man po iyan pwede). Some voters stated
that candidates, on winning office, would recover the money they spent in elections,
resulting in corruption and pilferage of the people’s money (kaban kan bayan).
Thus, for some villagers, their morals made them apprehend the handing out and receipt
of money as a transaction of vote buying and selling that undermined one’s freedom of
choice. Such conviction negates broad-sweeping assertions about the poor’s susceptibility
to vote buying. It also shows that not all of the poor regard elections as the opportune time
to assert claims to clientelist goods. Civic attitudes among the poor “prompt citizens to see
clientelist exchanges as illegitimate” (Lawson and Greene 2014, 72).
Few among our informants would say, “accept the money and vote according to your
conscience.” But a 19-year-old female voter explained that, regardless of the amount of
money received, one must vote based on the courage of one’s heart (napupusuan),
adding that “God is helping you that your mind will run in the right [course]”
Table 2. Responses to the question of whether or not accepting money is vote selling, rural
barangay, Camarines Sur, May 2016 elections.
Age Selling Vote Not Selling Vote No Answer Total
18–24 years 3 1 6 10
25–39 years 2 4 2 8
40–59 years 3 3 0 6
60 years and above 2 4 0 6
Total 10 12 8 30
(Pigtatabangan ka na po kan mahal na Diyos na an isip mo po ipadalagan sa marhay).

The cash received during elections is morally tainted. A 30-year-old male voter referred
to the actual bills received as “dead money” (gadan na kwarta), which could only be
spent for drinking sessions or other social activities with friends or neighbors. Because it
did not result from hard work, “dead money” should not be spent to feed the family, lest
the children ingest the moral corruption it embodied.
However, the acceptance of money is also justified from a moral calculus, albeit
configured differently. If the voter did not ask but was given money “voluntarily”
(boluntad na itinao) or “sincerely” (odok sa boot), then some voters considered it as
right to accept the money and even vote for the candidate. As a 59-year-old female
clarified, “Because I’m a voter, I don’t ask for money. If it is voluntarily given to me . . . it
will be a big thing and help to us” (Ta ako botante, dae ako naghahagad kan kwarta. Kun
kusa na itinao sakuya . . . dakulang bagay asin tabang na iyan samuya). A 39-year-old
male said the giving of money was all right if there was no pressure and no expected
return (Sa pagtaong kwarta, marhay kung . . . mayong kapalit). Awareness of this per-
spective could explain why brokers tended to be cautious in dealing with voters,
couching the giving of money as not really to buy votes and leaving the recipient to
spend it as they wished. Be that as it may, the circumspect way of handing cash still did
not convince other voters in this village about its legitimacy.
Among some voters who desperately needed cash, the money given during the
campaign was good, some deeming it a “blessing” (biyaya). A 21-year-old male
explained, “For us it’s good, because we have no money. It’s good that someone’s
giving. We’re desperate. It helps the poor” (Para samuya marhay, ta mayo kaming
kwarta. Marhay ngani igwang nagtatao. Taghirap. Nakatabang sa mga pobre). For this
man, it was a question of weighing two options: get the money and alleviate their
deprivation, or reject the money and remain in desperate straits. His poverty situation
inclined him to the first choice. However, he was quick to point out that if their need had
not been extreme it would be wrong to receive money: “But perhaps if we had money,
just enough money, [vote buying] is really wrong as far as I’m concerned” (Pero siguro
kun may kwarta kami, si tamang tama lang, talagang sala iyan para sakuya). In this sense,
his moral calculus was not fundamentally different from other voters; only his material
conditions made him approach the issue differently.
A 56-year-old man would accept the money and regard it as helping him and he
helping the candidate with his vote. Once in office, the candidate should help the poor
who seek help. In his words: “That’s helping. I’m saying that they are asking for help, so
help them. It’s not vote buying. But when you have helped them, when they win and are
seated [in their post], the poor people who seek their help should be given assistance.
That’s what I like. They buying my vote? No” (Pagtabang iyan. Sabi ko na sinda
naghahagad tabang, tabangan ngani. Bakong magbakal boto. Pero pag sinda ngani
tinabangan, pag sinda nanggana, nakatukaw na, si itong tios na tao na naghagad
saindang tabang, tabangan man ninda. Arog man an gusto ko. Babakalon ninda an
boto ko? Dae). Despite accepting money and voting for the candidate, this voter was
emphatic in not seeing the transaction as vote buying. Rather, he viewed the singular
act of giving money during elections in terms of a relationship of mutual help: the poor
voter and the candidate helping meet each other’s need. His view of patronage was not
restricted to himself but to all the poor who would need help. In this ethic of mutual
help, there is no vote buying even if money is handed out during an electoral campaign.
Nevertheless, there were also some very poor families who treated elections strate-
gically. They viewed the cash positively as helping them meet the immediate subsis-
tence needs of their families. In this instrumentalist transaction, reciprocity applied: the
money did induce the voters to vote for the candidate. In this regard, having a large
family was deemed advantageous because, with a large number of family members who
would vote as a block, the family could receive a relatively large amount of cash. Even
this deliberate strategy to maximize the family’s benefit from vote buying could still be
seen from a moral window, justified by the family’s poverty situation.
Evidently the residents of Barangay Salugsog do not share a universal and absolute
moral standard for assessing vote buying. From whatever angle one approaches the
issue, it is possible to provide a moral perspective on either accepting or rejecting
money offered during elections. Amid the strong clientelistic traditions in the village, a
sizeable number of poor voters consider vote buying unacceptable. Yet, from divergent
perspectives, the giving and accepting of money can be seen as vote buying, but it can
also be seen as not vote buying. What is interesting is the attempt to contextualize their
conduct during elections within some ethical perspective, suggesting the meaning
making entailed in how ordinary rural voters apprehend their participation in elections.
The election outcome

As discussed earlier, the political network under the incumbent barangay captain
planned to recruit 700 voters to its alliance, but its expected number of votes was
600. The political network under a former barangay captain planned to recruit 1,120
voters, but its expected total number of votes was set at 800. On the election day, the
barangay captain’s alliance garnered 513 votes for its mayoral candidate (85.5% of its
target), while their opponent obtained 497 votes (a mere 62.1% of its target). The tighter
organizational structure under the Kapitana and the recourse to various forms of threat
would seem to have produced the desired outcome, although by a slim margin of
victory of 16 votes. However, although this mayoral candidate won in Salugsog, it was
not the case for the entire municipality, where this candidate lost. The barangay captain
took consolation in having delivered the vote in her village.
The outcome was disconcerting for those who campaigned and supported the losing
mayoral candidate. Their active participation in the campaign had made them conspicu-
ously known – markado – as belonging to the loser’s camp. As such, they felt they could not
approach the new mayor for help. A 40-year-old female broker, who was also a barangay
tanod, was apprehensive that she and her entire family had been markado; consequently,
she said, “Now you can no longer approach [the administration] because the one we voted
for was [the loser]. They won’t help you because you’re already markado. That’s how it is
here. . . Because our candidate lost, eh, we’re markado already; all’s gone” (Ngonian dae ka
na makakarani [sa administrasyon] ta an ibinoto mo si [loser]. Dae ka na ninda tatabangan ta
markado ka na. Arog kaiyan digdi. . . Ay, ta nadaog an samuyang manok, markado na; mayo
na). She called the system palakasan, which Mary Racelis defined as “testing the power of
one’s ingroup against competing groups” (Hollnsteiner 1970, 192). The mayor’s office, the
broker said, would not deny her request for assistance outright or might even say yes to it,
but they would require her to seek the signature of the councilor belonging to their camp,
making her feel embarrassed to go to any length: “It’s shameful to still approach them”
(Nakakasupog naman na magrani pa sainda). With this scenario in mind, she accepted
exclusion as the logical consequence of the political stand she took during the campaign.
Within the village, the immediate aftermath of the electoral contest was discord and
bad blood. As a 26-year-old female resident observed disconcertingly of her own village,
“If their candidate did not win, the way they look at other people turns sour. They feel
hurt . . . They pull down each other” (Kun an kandidato ninda dae nanggana, nagraraot an
paghiling ninda sa ibang tao. Nagraraot an boot ninda . . . nagraraotan sinda), prompting
her to express the hope that “in the next election, I don’t want envy to predominate” (sa
masunod na eleksyon, habo ko na mangibabaw an inggit). This hope grates against the
highly personalistic character of local politics and the deeply ingrained alliance system,
which people think is the only way to access state goods and services and which local
politicians utilize to win office, strengthen their following, and exploit in the next round
of the electoral game.
Conclusion
Ethnographic research demonstrates that the market exchange model of vote buying
does not hold in the rural barangay of Salugsog. The key to understand vote buying
in this village is a cultural model of alliance systems in which broker agency, voter
agency, and social relationships play key roles. An alliance system that is formed to
advance the candidacy of a municipal politician tends to be ad hoc and unstable; it
may intersect but not necessarily fully overlap with a political party, which in any
event tends to be weakly established. The alliance system relies on the commitment
of mostly “activist brokers” who engage in highly personalized communication stra-
tegies to woo voters individually. Once the voter gives indications of favoring the
broker’s candidate, the broker offers the voter a sum of money, more as a form of
reward for joining the alliance than as an inducement to vote in a specific way. The
giving of cash is not a crass, but rather a suave, action that does not diminish the
dignity of the poor voter.
In most cases, there is no subjective interpretation that, because one accepted money
from a candidate, then the candidate and the voter are engaged in a relationship of
exchange. If anything, the relationship is seen as one of mutual help. In any event,
enforcement of a voter’s assent to vote for a candidate remains subject to uncertainty; it
is not foolproof, prompting some campaigners to resort to intimidation and other
deceptive stratagems. A cornerstone of the broker’s strategy is to develop a relationship
with the voter because, if any relationship is established during the campaign, it is one
that concerns an alliance, involving the broker as well as the candidate, an alliance that
they expect will continue when the candidate wins, assumes office, and reciprocates
voter support. In the case of a municipal mayor, the alliance operates for the duration of
the official’s term of office, equivalent to 3 years.
However, for both brokers and voters in the context of clientelism, choosing a
candidate and the accompanying alliance is immersed in both hope and risk, as in
any political project. The hope is that, if the candidate wins, benefits will accrue to the
individual family at the time of need as well as to the whole community, a noble ideal in
the face of political discord. In fact, the risk is real, subject to a 50–50 chance: if one’s
candidate loses the election, the alliance serves no purpose and one feels excluded from
the goods and services that local officials are believed to dispense only to their network
of followers. Thus, to choose a candidate and an alliance requires the boldness of the
heart, which locals call napupusuan, in the face of a seeming gamble. It also means
risking social relationships that are invariably affected when members of the same social
unit take opposing views on a candidate.
The alliance system may be a response to the poverty that prevails in this locality;
however, it may also be drawing from an ancient model of leadership that relies on
networks of alliances, as prevailed in the preconquest age. Be that as it may, brokers and
voters regard their engagement in local politics within the meaning-making possibilities
of culture. Brokers in this rural village believe in their cause; if they feel disaffected by
the winning candidate’s performance in office – a way of exacting accountability – at the
next election they shift to another alliance whose candidate’s promised reforms they can
champion. Voters, for their part, see their choice of candidate as an exercise of freedom,
of sovereign will, as they choose the candidate they deem to be the best, which may
involve clientelist expectations as well as notions of the common good seen from the
locality’s particular needs – a frame of meaning that brokers similarly follow in selecting
the candidate and alliance network to support.
In regard to vote buying, the rural poor in this village are far from monolithic. Yet,
despite the divergent opinions concerning the giving as well as the receiving of money
during a campaign, everyone abides by some moral framework. If voters reject the
money offered, it is because of a moral prerogative and conviction. If they accept the
money, voters also moralize the choice they make, justifying their action in terms of their
family’s material deprivation or disparaging the actual bills received as “dead money”
unfit for feeding one’s family, lest they consume the “evil” that taints the cash received.
Voter education campaigns that moralize about vote buying fail to grasp the moral
calculus that ordinary voters go through.
The model of market exchange by which many observers understand vote buying
fails to account for the complexity of social relationships, emotional entanglements,
logistical maneuvers, and cultural meanings that are implicated in systems of alliances
and brokerage during electoral campaigns at the village level. Culture cannot be ignored
and must be included in understanding the agency of brokers and voters and the
meanings they attach to political acts.
Notes
1. In a study of poor voters in Metro Manila during the 2016 elections, 4 percent “received an
offer in exchange for them not to vote” and, in another sample, 10.8 percent claimed they
knew others who received this offer (Canare, Mendoza, and Lopez 2018, 70). Note that some
form of service, rather than money, was promised in this type of transaction, which has
been called “negative vote buying” (Morgan and Felix 2012).
2. Prior to the automation of Philippine elections, monitoring compliance was relatively easy
through the “carbon paper” method through which voters were compelled to duplicate
their handwritten entries in the official ballot and to submit the carbon copy to those who
gave or would give them money. Automation has rendered this and other methods of
monitoring voter compliance obsolete, but methods of intimidation exist, as discussed later
in this article.
3. Nichter’s (2008) solution to the puzzle is specific to Argentina where voting is compulsory
but weakly enforced: rather than influence voter choice, parties induce electoral participa-
tion, which he calls “turnout buying,” to mobilize party supporters. However, voters who are
indifferent or opposed to the party but are inclined to vote may be the target of vote
buying, which resurfaces the problem of monitoring voters’ actual decision. Also in the
context of Argentina, Susan Stokes (2005) argues that parties are able to “effectively, if
imperfectly, monitor the actions of their constituents” through brokers who are immersed in
the local community; note, however that “Argentina has the secret ballot but not the
Australian ballot” (ibid.). Both Nichter’s and Stokes’s models cannot be applied to the
Philippines where parties are weakly established and groups that pass for parties do not
have a large number of core supporters.
4. In the 1970s, Philippine “values research” highlighted the norm of reciprocity among
Filipinos and how relative status positions of the parties affected the social exchange. See
Hollnsteiner (1973).
5. For details on the system of identifying poor households, see https://www.dap.edu.ph/coe-
psp/innov_initiatives/listahanan-national-household-targeting-system-for-poverty-reduc
tion-nhts-pr/, accessed 7 March 2018.
6. See Swamy (2016) for a study of the 4Ps and its impact on reducing clientelism.
7. Kerkvliet (1990, 229) has observed that in the 1960s the two political alliances in the Nueva
Ecija village he studied “corresponded roughly to the two major national political parties.”
With the multiparty system, the neatness of this binary scheme has been dissipated.
8. The statement, which is here not translated verbatim, states: “Ta minsan kaya, su itong
kaistoryahan ano, kontra duman sa pigmamanok mo. Aram mo man ‘pag may pulitika,
minsan sinasabi ninda na, ‘Ako ngaya, habo ko kaiyan tao na iyan.’ Syempre itong maistorya,
iyo palan ‘to ang manok niya man. O, di, makulog an boot sa imo.” On the reference to
candidates as “cocks” (manok) and the gambling mindset in elections, see Aguilar (1994;
Aguilar 2007).
9. During field interviews it is customary for research projects at the IPC to give some snacks to
respondents as a token of appreciation for their participation in the research. In this village,
we would give our respondents a small slice of chiffon cake; but word spread that we were
“giving out groceries.” This rumor made us appear political, since politicians and their allies
were the ones who would distribute grocery items, especially during the election season. A
female barangay health worker, who understood our research project and served as guide,
explained to residents that our research team is from the university as attested by the t-shirt
and ID in a lanyard worn by Grace Alis, who was also introduced to the Barangay Assembly
as a researcher from the Ateneo.
10. Some candidates in Indonesia also require their brokerage network to produce lists of
expected voters (Aspinall 2014, 555).
11. The assertion that “vote buying is part of a longstanding relationship between politicians
and their low-income constituents” (Canare, Mendoza, and Lopez 2018, 80) fails to grasp the
instability of brokerage networks, a finding that Aspinall (2014) also saw in Indonesia.
12. Canare, Mendoza, and Lopez (2018, 60, 70) report that, for the 2016 elections, the average
amount given in vote buying strategies in Metro Manila was close to P500. For a rural
barangay with a lower cost of living, such as the one studied here, one would expect a
lower amount to buy votes, but that was not the case. In the course of the campaign, some
brokers said they gave out P200, but others handed out P500 and on more than one
occasion. In Metro Manila the amount given for votes could be as low as P50, a sum
unheard of in this rural village. We could not identify the source of funds, but villagers had
their own speculations, which will be mentioned later in this article.
13. The heightened tension on election day conforms to the ritual structure of elections. See
Aguilar (2018).
14. The Bikol napupusuan is a positive way of expressing what in English is stated negatively as
“losing heart.” The English idiom, “take heart,” conveys some sense of the Bikol word, which
is used in romantic as well as political contexts.
15. Finan and Schechter (2012) found that in Paraguay politicians target individuals who abide
by norms of reciprocity. In this study, however, the campaign brokers did not target
individuals for the likelihood of their reciprocity, even as our admittedly limited data
suggest that only a minority of villagers recognized reciprocity as an imperative when
money was received.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to two anonymous referees who made very constructive comments that helped sharpen
the argument of this article. This study was conducted under the auspices of an institutional research
project called “Vote of the Poor 2016: Bottom-up Perceptions of Electoral and Political Strategies”
funded by the Institute of Philippine Culture (IPC) of the School of Social Sciences, Ateneo de Manila
University. Thank you to the IPC and its officials and staff as well as to the coinvestigators of this
project: Jose Jowel P. Canuday, Lisandro Elias E. Claudio, and Jayeel S. Cornelio.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Filomeno V. Aguilar Jr. is professor in the Department of History, Ateneo de Manila University, and
chief editor of Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints. He is the author of Clash
of Spirits: The History of Power and Sugar Planter Hegemony on a Visayan Island (1998); Maalwang
Buhay: Family, Overseas Migration, and Cultures of Relatedness in Barangay Paraiso (2009); Migration
Revolution: Philippine Nationhood and Class Relations in a Globalized Age (2014); and Peripheries:
Histories of Anti-Marginality (2018). He served as principal investigator of “Vote of the Poor 2016.”
Mary Grace Joyce P. Alis graduated with a BA degree in Development Communication from the
Ateneo de Naga University and a MS degree in Social Development from the Ateneo de Manila
University. She is currently affiliated with the Ateneo Social Science Research Center, Ateneo de
Naga University. She has served as research assistant for several IPC projects, including as field
ethnographer for this study.
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Philippine Political Science Journal

ISSN: 0115-4451 (Print) 2165-025X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rpsj20

Brokers courting voters: the alliance system in a

Filomeno V. Aguilar & Mary Grace Joyce P. Alis

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01154451.2018.1525511

Published online: 24 Sep 2018.

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Brokers courting voters: the alliance system in a rural

Introduction: pitfalls of the market model

CONTACT Filomeno V. Aguilar fvaguilar@ateneo.edu

Barangay Salugsog and the study’s informants

Alliance systems and political divisions

“Meetings” as opening salvos

Brokers’ recruitment and their motivations

(Nagtugot ako ta . . . magayon an sa iyang programa, arog kan improvement kan

Brokers’ organization and vote-getting strategies

Strategies at the end of the race

Sigurado naman ako na si [opponent] an iboboto ko). On a separate occasion, this

Voter views on vote buying and selling

(Pigtatabangan ka na po kan mahal na Diyos na an isip mo po ipadalagan sa marhay).

The election outcome

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