"I can never forget an unusual experience in Samar. Our night rally lasted up to two or three o’clock in the morning, and we were scheduled to be in Catbalogan sometime in the early afternoon. As we had only around two hours of sleep, we were tired and sleepy. After a hearty breakfast, we rode an old jeepney without realizing that the driver had been listening to our speeches up to the wee hours of the morning. After an hour or two on the road, he fell asleep just like us, and we suddenly felt we were going down and down – into a ravine. Luckily, we only sustained minor bruises and contusions, though we had some difficulty getting out.

"In the Catbalogan rally that evening, I spoke about our dreadful experience. I noticed the crowd fell into hushed silence as I recounted how we crawled out of the ravine. The rally was covered by radio, and the whole province of Samar – which had not yet been divided into three provinces – must have been listening. The final results of the elections in that province seemed to show we had won the sympathy of the electorate." [A Journey of Struggle and Hope. QC: U.P. Center for Leadership, Citizenship and Democracy, 2001, p. 107]

It was the 1965 elections and Jovito Salonga’s first Senate race. The Samar incident was certainly alarming, but not as frightful as the 1971 Plaza Miranda Bombing.

"Before 9 PM, we were seated on the stage, and I noticed the keyed-up, expectant crowd, some of them shouting ‘Bomba!’ from time to time. I was seated between Serging Osmeña, our 1969 candidate for president, and Melanio Singson, my fellow senatorial candidate. I had planned to talk about the massive fraud in the 1969 presidential election…But before we could speak, two Vietnam-type fragmentation grenades were hurled at us by unknown persons during the fireworks display.

"I didn’t know at that time that there were two grenades thrown and that one grenade did not explode. I felt a very heavy blow in my chest and could only mumble the words of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane: ‘Father, Thy will be done.’ I passed out seconds after the blast." [pages 163-164]

Not all candidates have it as rough as Salonga, yet it is certain that the road to electoral victory is paved with heartaches, strenuous physical exertions and horrendous expenses. No wonder that many well-meaning citizens are put off. Why would a right-thinking person surrender his serenity to the bedlam of the electoral process?

One politician narrated his reluctance to enter the melee. His first political party was the Young Philippines, which was born due to repression of student rights in the University of the Philippines. His party’s first outing was the 1940 elections where Wenceslao Q. Vinzons was a gubernatorial bet for Camarines Norte and this young man was urged to run for a seat in the Manila Council.

Arturo M. Tolentino refused to be a candidate. "My interest in public affairs, good government and strong enlightened public opinion did not go to the extent of personally aspiring for public office, especially if I had to be in politics." [Voice of Dissent. QC: Phoenix Publishing House, Inc., 1990, p. 19]

Tolentino did run for the position. He ran again in 1946. In both contests, the requisites of victory were made plain and painful.

"I found out that having no inspector was almost fatal to a candidate. One day after the election, while I was walking in front of the Far Eastern University, there were two men ahead of me conversing about the election. One of them said, ‘We divided Tolentino between the two of us,’ and when asked what that meant, he said, ‘When one ballot carries the name of Tolentino we do not read his name but we give instead the name of my NP candidate. The next ballot that would carry the name of Tolentino would be read in the name of the LP candidate of the other inspectors; so in the end Tolentino had practically no vote in the precinct although it was possible that if all the votes were counted correctly he might have won in that precinct.’ This was what happened because the Young Philippines had no inspector to protect the votes for its candidate." [p. 81]

Violence, accidents, cheating. Very tough for the prospective public official. And the thing that underlines the effort is money. The campaign goes kaput without money. A candidate is made or broken by money.

As it is, corruption already affects up to 70 percent of life in the Philippines, according to Transparency International, and with 110,000 candidates vying for 17,000 positions nationally and locally, the temptation to buy victory is intensified. Political finance is a hard factor.

Not only in the Philippines but everywhere else. According to Dr. Marcin Walecki, IFES senior advisor, criminal interests can use illegal funding channels to disrupt the electoral process or attempt state capture. Besides organized crime, other vested interests weigh in with campaign money. Hitler and Mussolini won seats in their parliaments. Who funded them? Even in democracies those who have the gold rule. In the United States, the 1936 elections were dominated by gross abuse of federal funding.

Public control of political finance is a must, and one essential element of effective control is real time disclosure of campaign contributions. Audits have to take place during the elections.

In Latvia, there are detailed expenditure declarations and donors’ names are published in the Internet not later than 10 days after the receipt of the donation. In terms of enforcement, the Latvian anti-corruption bureau demanded the payback of 180,000 dollars in illegal donations from a governing coalition party in 2004. A total of 500,000 dollars worth of illegal donations has been paid to the state budget. [Lolita Cigane, "Money and Politics" Conference, Manila, January 22, 2007]