paraphrasing Tina Turner’s what’s love got to do with it.

        As all “professional politicians” know (those who run for public office for a living, i.e., all), you have to send an advance party of ten to fifteen of your staffmembers, operators, and handlers, to a site at least a week before a sortie.  Why? Oh just to make sure the announced rally for your candidates pushes thru. You cannot run it by remote. You have to send your own people there. The advance party talks to the ward leaders, the barangay chairmen, the councillors, local officials. The members of  advance party are not only events-organizers  (like, they list down the leaders and the corresponding number of people each would bring, they make sure  the sound system works,  the stage, streamers, buntings, etc. are set up), but they should also be your most trusted and efficient staffers because they distribute the money and goodies to the local leaders and operators. If you don’t distribute moneys, there won’t be any rally. (of course, people’s organizations are able to hold rallies with a minimum of logistics because you’re talking about ten years of organizing work, but that’s not my topic today).

      If the rally cannot possibly be produced, your advance party should improvise and make remedies. Do not announce schedules and have no back-up plan. There’s always something planned in case of rain so- to- speak, or in case the production number becomes impossible.

         Two or three days before D-day (the day of the sortie), the advance party sleeps there. Just to
make sure the event pushes thru.

      On the day itself of the political rally, you have to distribute money again.

      Why do you have to keep distributing  money? You won’t have poll watchers and election watchers
 on election day itself. But even as you distribute moneys, you have to reserve the biggest stash for
 election day. During the counting itself, you have to make sure you have the biggest largesse. Because if your opponent offers a bigger “honorarium” to your pollwatchers and election watchers, they will turn to the other side. They will go home. During the counting. You will  not find them. Or if they are present, they will not speak up while your votes are being transferred to your opponent. To paraphrase Tina Turner’s what’s-love-got-to-do-with-it; What’s principles got to do with it. What’s platforms got to do with it. It’s just business. They collect here, they collect there, then they go to the winner. And when you cry that you’ve been cheated, the Comelec will tell you, where’s your proof, your own election watchers did not say anything, how can you say you were cheated – if your election watchers did not raise it, it’s not our fault that you didn’t have money, er, este, that you were cheated.

      And this is where the ruling party is good at. They have a Ph.D. in this. They have multiple Ph.D’s in this. This is their game. Do not try if you cannot outbuy.

       Presumably, as election day draws near and you are able to show that you are The One, i.e., you are the winning candidate – presumably – the donations will crash in like water from a dam. The donors give to both sides and reserve the big one for the winner.

        Of course there are valiant efforts on the part of media organizations and civic groups to document the cheating by photos, SMS, volunteers, etc.These will capture those kinds of cheating done publicly.  The bulk of the cheating is pre-produced and occurs in hotel rooms and those who are able to photograph these and live to submit the photos will win a Pulitzer.

       Those who cannot explain these operational details to you just get their day-to-day thoughts from bloggers.