The last barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections saw candidates caught in a welter of charges and counter charges. The bone of contention: massive vote buying.

Since we were qualified to vote, we witnessed in our own eyes how vote buying corrupted the electorate.

If at all, there were incidents of candidates not resorting to buying their way to win public office, they were far and in-between. In most cases, the candidates just do not take chances. The usual mantra: everybody wants to be a winner and nobody wants to be a loser. They imagine the day they lost the elections and they become the laughing stock all over. Even if they knew for a fact that they have the wherewithal to ensure victory, the better part of discretion prevailed upon them. The losers realized later that there is no substitute for victory , thus, it really pays to put one over the opponent.

The current buzzword about the culture of impunity breeds the present phenomenon of a culture in vote buying.

If we have to lump the two cultures as part of latter-day reality, then there is no gainsaying that it becomes a vicious cycle that haunts the voting public every time elections takes place.

And the price tag for every ballot is increasing by leaps and bounds.

The last barangay and SK elections was a living testament that vote buying has reached unprecedented heights. In some places during the last barangay elections, votes were traded like sought-after commodities. Reports have it that votes were sold to the highest bidder reaching as high as P500.00 vote.

The SK polls which were supposed to be the epitome of honest and orderly elections became the launching pad of future politicians who are no better than the present ones. The youth elections looked like the kindergarten school of future politicians who are wise to the ways of vote-buying and other deplorable election antics.

The last May elections was no different.

If we have to entertain reports circulated then, it was indeed heart-breaking to know that the political exercise in Loay and Panglao totally changed the political landscape of the two towns forever.

The Loay experience according to reports, showed that votes were bought at P20,000 per household that if true, the candidate who was responsible for dispensing this kind of money must have thought that it would be demonetized the following day.

Panglao was another hotbed of massive vote buying. Whoever was responsible for the Panglao vote-buying expedition must have hated the incumbent mayor ferociously that he left no stone unturned to win the hearts and minds of the electorate.

The result then was that mayor Doloriech Dumaluan was buried in neck deep margin, a lead considered the biggest in the history of Panglao politics.

The election spoiler was reported to have bought the Panglao ballot at P2,000 each and he was reported bracing to up the ante to P5,000 per vote had Dumaluan unleased his vaunted firepower at the last minute.

The story of Loay and Panglao highlighted the dimension of how vote buying became the order of the day in every election. After all, the truism that he who has the gold makes the rule is still the tested yardstick of winning votes.

All told, the culture of vote buying is here to stay.