Roy Vincent B.

Guardados AB- Political Science

Ateneo de Davao University

“Patronage in Philippine Politics”

It’s hard to catch fish without bait and that is a fact. Just like elections in the Philippines, it’s hard
to get the support of the masses if you don’t have incentives to them and that means that you must
have financial capacity if you are seeking national or even just local political positions. Your money in the
bank dictates your destiny in the political arena of the Philippines.

Elections in the Philippines are patronage driven; meaning providing patronage plays a big part
in the political arena of the Philippines. People that usually provide incentives to their clients are
incumbent politicians that are seeking reelection or wanted to remain on their seats. These politicians
believes that providing patronage is the most important and effective strategy to win elections. There
are three major methods of how patronage is distributed to the clients of a patron namely pork-
barreling, casework and vote- buying. Just by identifying the three we can already figure out what’s the
most crucial among the three.

If you chose pork-barreling among the three to be the most crucial method of providing
patronage then you are correct. Why pork- barreling? The answer is simple. Casework and vote- buying
obviously needs a lot of money and that money will come from the pork. Again, why do we say pork-
barreling is the most crucial? It is the most crucial (for incumbents) because it will finance the other two
methods of providing patronage. How do the three methods benefit a politician? Pork- barreling can
benefit a politician through credit- claiming; have you seen visible pork- projects like bridges, waiting
sheds, drainage systems or even ambulances that names of legislators are printed with big font? That’s
credit- claiming, they really meant to put their names there so that the public would know them and
might make them popular. That is how pork- barreling benefits every politician. How can casework
benefit a politician? Casework involves a plethora of activities that targets individuals like a politician
attends wedding, funeral or make financial contributions to community affairs such as beauty contests,
sport meetings, and religious festival. Casework creates psychological indebtedness among the
recipients of his service or in the most obvious term “Utang na Loob.” Next, it creates a “good
reputation” that he is approachable, generous, caring, and so on… it reinforces his image as “good
politician” among Filipino voters, boosting his chances of winning in the next election. Lastly how does
vote- buying benefit a politician? It works similar to casework, receiving money creates a sense of debt
and gratitude, paying such debt is a social norm in Philippine society, and the only way that debt can be
paid is to vote for the patron.

As conclusion, patronage- dominated elections can be considered the product of the interaction
between a high demands for patronage by voters on the one hand, and a high supply of patronage by
politicians on the other. Widespread poverty is likely to be the deepest reason why many Filipino voters
demand patronage from politicians. Even rich Filipino voters do not disagree about the idea of
Patronage politics.