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Is Vote Buying Here to Stay?

(this article is the Executive Summary of Michael Canares' paper "The Economics of Local Elections: A Closer Look at Votebuying in the Municipality of Malanoy") Election in the Philippines is fiesta time. It is a very colorful affair strewn with songs and dances, local parties, solicitation papers, advertisements, “bayle”, food and drinks, and even money – cold cash at that. In the Philippines you can see sample ballots pinned with paper bills distributed by “coordinators” the eve before Election Day. And sometimes, in the Philippines , you can see how those paper bills make a difference on election results. While it is an undeniable fact that vote-buying is an accepted and a regular activity in Philippine local elections, there are only a few studies that indicate the propensity, if not the gravity of the problem more particularly in the context of municipal elections, where the relationship of the politician and the voter is sometimes reduced to a

That Knowledge Deficit

I came across a very powerful article by Jeffrey Sachs in The Broker Magazine issue for February 2010. Though I am not his huge fan even when he wrote “The End of Poverty” five years back, I got excited by how bluntly he made a critic on government and the development enterprise regarding the climate change issue after Copenhagen. He wrote, in his final remarks on his essay “Rethinking Macroeconomics” regarding that knowledge deficit in the policy-making halls of governments. I love the lines. This is the reason why I am reproducing it here. “Finally, another fundamental problem of governance is the lack of interface between politicians and ‘knowledge communities’, that is, the communities of expertise in critical areas such as energy, food production, disease control, poverty alleviation, and so on. We have not solved the problem of the proper integration of scientific and technological knowledge in public policy making. The US Congress is nearly scientifically illiterate. This is v

The Problem with Representative Democracy

The Bohol Chronicle reported today (27 December 2009) that the Sangguniang Panlalawigan has given a go-signal for the governor of the province of Bohol to sign a joint venture and development agreement (JVDA) with Oasis Leisure Islands Development Inc. (OLIDI) to reclaim at least 450 hectares by building 5 islets at Panglao Bay. The provincial lawmakers believed that the proposal was advantageous to the government, as it will not spend any single peso for the project, from its inception to implementation. Interestingly, the Bohol Chronicle reported that Vice Governor Herrera stressed that "Several discussions have been made and the SP met with the proponents many times. Concerns of each board member have been satisfactorily answered." I was appalled. It seems that the Sangguniang Panlalawigan members have not read the proposal in its entirety. I wonder if they could answer questions if reporters will ask them for the details of the proposal. I wonder

Where are the people in the Dauis Renaissance Program?

(The Dauis Renaissance Program is about converting the Dauis convent to a museum, souvenir and coffeeshop, and a function room, the construction of decks in the courtyard and the installation of lighting fixtures. It also involved the renovation of the convent roof, the construction and fit out of kitchen and bakery, and the acquisition of implements for dining or banquet services.) I was informed by a colleague of mine that Bea Zobel de Ayala commissioned a research to ascertain the impact of the things that she was doing in Bohol in the past few years. The assessment was conducted by my friends at Holy Name University and was implemented in two sites – Baclayon and Dauis. They said they were interviewing key people regarding the projects. Unfortunately, I am not a key person, so I did not have a chance to be interviewed. I just hoped it is not because I am against how the project was undertaken, lest I will really conclude that they are only interviewing those that have something g