Numerous scams have proliferated in the different parts of the country that caused millions of Filipinos to be amassed of their hard-earned money because of too good to be true schemes over the past several decades. Such scams have extended beyond borders because of the emergence of the rapid advancement of information and communication technology that allowed even foreigners to pursue their scamming activities online. Schemes such as double your money, high interests for short term placement of investments, networking, fishing, among others have exacted hundreds of billions of pesos from people, most of them have been indebted because of their desire to get rich quick.
Despite the aggressive efforts of the government to abate the proliferation of scams, many people are still being enticed to invest their hard-earned money to dubious investment schemes that eventually result to the loss of their placements and leaving them helpless to recover the same. The filing of cases against the identified scammers seem not to be a good remedy because as time goes by, people are no longer interested to pursue such cases because of the evident delaying tactics employed by the scammers aggravated by the snail-paced justice system that demoralize people from proceeding with the prosecution of their scammers.
Much have been said to crackdown on the proliferation of scams in the country but as the years pass by, there are new schemes that are being developed that tend to lure people to try their luck to rescope their lost investments in the past. Obviously, we have not learned from our difficult experiences that nearly drained our resources because we keep trying to look for chances for us to be able to immediately recover from our wrong decisions.
However, the biggest ever scam in our country is vote buying every three years because of the conduct of the synchronized national and local elections. The practice of vote buying by politicians is their own version of an obvious scam just for them to be able to stay in power and continue doing their corrupt activities to enrich themselves and their families. While the Commission on election (Comelec) is trying to curb the proliferation of vote buying every election, there are always many to remedy the situation for them to pursue their vote buying activities and achieve their desire for power and greed of money.
Vote buying is considered as the biggest scam because people are being convinced or forced to vote for certain politicians in exchange for the money that they are being provided before and during the elections to secure that the said enterprising individuals will stay in power. Aside from being paid for their votes, people are also easily persuaded to vote for politicians because of the too good to be true promises which are actually not being fulfilled and remains in the air.
The emergence of the social media and digital platforms also resulted to the advancement of vote buying activities by politicians that is why people have now relied on easy money from those aspiring for elected positions just o sustain a portion of their daily subsistence.
We should remember that the money being distributed by politicians to buy our votes is from their questionable actions and illegal activities that proliferate in their places. We do not owe anything to our politicians because they are obligated to serve us and not for us to serve them. Let us remember that politicians shell out millions of pesos every election just to distribute money to the voters to ensure their victory and after that, they actually forget us for the next three years and remember us again once they desire to be re-elected or aspire for other elected positions.
Over the past several weeks, many people have been talking about the various ways that politicians are doing their vote buying activities in exchange for too good to be true promises but it seems that the poll body is helpless in curbing the said illegal and questionable activities. If we have learned from our lessons in the past, then we should be brave enough in resisting the money being offered to us in exchange for our valuable votes. If we cannot resist it, then we get the money because that came from their corrupt activities and vote for the right people that we know could be of service to us.
If we are really true to ourselves, then we must be vocal against such forms of vote buying because we do not condone it in the first place because we deserve politicians who are true to their words in serving the people instead of enriching themselves at our expense and right in front of our noses.
Let us be mindful of our better future and not to be counted with temporary reliefs being offered and provided by politicians who are engaged in vote buying activities. We have to put a stop to such kind of illegal election-related activities because our votes cannot actually be bought.
