F&G: Election Season

Elections are coming up on May 13 but people have been campaigning since January. We know this because the Barangka Credit Cooperative, which owns our apartment building and is across the street, is fielding a candidate for congress through the Ating Koop political party (see more here). We’re not entirely sure how it works, but basically it seems like in some areas people can vote for a particular party, who will then put in a congressperson.

Back in January, Grace started hearing a song played at very high volume outside, repeated over and over again. This was actually not that unusual. But instead of playing “Call Me Maybe” or “Gangnam Style,” it was something we didn’t recognize. And it was very short, less than 90 seconds.

We soon solved the mystery when we realized that we were hearing a jingle for a political campaign, played from giant speakers placed on top of a van and a truck both festooned with Ating Koop #35 Party List banners. These banners and posters were everywhere and it seemed like everyone in BCC was doing something for the campaign. For example, several guys have taken over the empty space underneath our apartment to make “Ating Koop” signs. They have big bamboo trunks that they cut into frames for “Ating Koop” posters.

note the speakers on top

view from our apartment, two campaign vans with speakers

sign where we buy fruit

tricycle in front of BCC

the roof of our apartment building (yes, that's the frame of a christmas tree)

more decorations, these for the big fiesta on May 1

Ground floor of our building: making signs with bamboo frames (stacks of them on the left)

I don’t know if the campaign will be successful, but the Ating Koop jingle is definitely a hit (here's a recording). When the trucks roll in with the music blaring we normally hear people join in to sing along (you can hear children singing along on this windy day recording). We’ll also occasionally hear little kids start singing it while playing. When we mentioned this to one of the BCC workers he sang the entire song for us from memory. Even non-BCC workers are in on this. We were watching a local basketball game the other night and the announcer, who, like everyone else, lives in our neighborhood, started singing the jingle between plays. We learned from Pacific Rims that part of the reason for the repetition of these jingles was that voters used to have to write their candidates’ names on the ballots, so they had to be able to remember them. This has changed in recent years to a ballot where voters can make a mark next to printed names, but the jingles still exist.

truck parked on Katipunan

In the past week or so, we’ve also started to notice other signs going up for other races. Katipunan (the big road bordering Ateneo) is now much louder than normal from the trucks and vans driving by blasting their candidate’s campaign jingle. These are little hard to catch on video since they’re not always there but other day there was one parked on the side of the road. We've also been around a few times when various campaign vehicles drive through our neighborhood. For example, I was able to capture it when one of these trucks drove right by our building. Yesterday, while we were trying to nap, we were awoken (a phrase I think I've used a lot in these posts...) by the sound of honking and music. I went out to our balcony to catch the tail end of a caravan of vehicles blasting campaign jingles and bearing posters of politicians. As we’ve traveled around Manila, especially on our trips to Antipolo and Pampanga, we’ve seen many signs for other candidates and parties.

Earlier this week, we were watching a game at our local basketball court (summer league is in session so there are multiple games each night) and the play was interrupted for a handful of candidates to make short speeches. We recognized one of the speakers, who was very warmly received, from the campaign posters in our neighborhood.