A Landslide and a Betrayal
"Patrick. I want you to run for mayor of Zamboanga."
"Excuse me?" Patrick asked, looking completely bewildered.
"I said, run for mayor of Zamboanga."
"I'm not sure I understand, sir."
Patrick still looked entirely lost, unable to grasp what I was getting at.
"Simon. Explain it to him."
"Yes, sir. I'll explain," Simon said, stepping in to briefly summarize recent events. He explained how Abu Sayyaf and the BLF had vanished, leaving Damaya to unify the rebels, and how Damaya's popularity was currently skyrocketing across Mindanao.
"We have a lot of work ahead of us, and having Patrick as mayor would be a massive help."
Patrick seemed to ponder Simon's explanation for a moment before speaking.
"So... you need someone in office to provide administrative and policy support so that Damaya can operate more freely in Zamboanga and Mindanao?"
Having heard only a brief explanation, Patrick immediately grasped the situation and identified his role. As expected of a University of the Philippines graduate. I was starting to get curious about their curriculum. To read a situation that quickly... I wanted to learn how to do that myself.
"Exactly. Spot on," I replied.
"To be more precise, isn't it closer to: 'The rebels are going to cause trouble, so clean up after them'?"
"Huh? Is that how it sounds? But why would they cause trouble? There are no rival factions left to clash with. The reason we need administrative support is to legitimize and normalize operations like the mines, farms, and logging camps. Having someone in office makes that much easier. That way, we can even get those workers registered for insurance, right?"
"If that's all, it's entirely doable. Honestly, if I can just secure the mayor's seat, the possibilities are endless. But is winning an election really feasible just because we run? An election isn't child's play."
Simon answered that question.
"Of course. Absolutely. Damaya's popularity in Mindanao is overwhelming right now. Countless people want to join us, and our economic influence is massive. Especially since so many people are dissatisfied with the current mayor. If we use a catchphrase like 'We can change everything' and push forward with our combined strength, we will get excellent results."
At Simon's confident words, Patrick picked up his tablet and began checking various news sites and online communities. He also made several phone calls to verify some details. It took quite a long time.
After confirming the current situation and agonizing over it for a while, Patrick finally spoke.
"But Damaya's influence spans the entirety of Mindanao. Will taking just the mayor's seat in Zamboanga be enough?"
"What do you mean?"
"We need to take all of Mindanao. Only then can we make things move exactly as we want."
"Huh??"
Who is this guy? He's terrifying. Take all of Mindanao? He has some serious scale. No wonder whenever I asked him for a favor, things always blew up. I had underestimated him.
In truth, Patrick was right. Damaya's influence was spread across all of Mindanao. Naturally, taking the entire island was far better than just Zamboanga. That was an obvious, self-evident truth.
Even so, the reason I had only mentioned Zamboanga was because we didn't have the resources for anything bigger. First of all, we lacked candidates. Patrick was the only one who had gone to college and looked respectable. The rest of us... well, it was grim.
Should we run Sandro, the mob boss? Or Scott, the street fighter? Or Dennis, the arms dealer? They had so many disqualifying factors they wouldn't even pass candidate registration.
So, the place we had carefully selected was Zamboanga. Our armory was there, and Damaya's headquarters wasn't far. If we had to choose just one spot on the vast island of Mindanao, it had to be Zamboanga.
Yet Patrick was talking about taking the entire island. What a scale.
"Let's form a political party," Patrick said.
"A political party?"
"The Philippines operates on party politics. If we establish a party, there are many benefits and advantages."
"Well, we can make a party, but do we have enough candidates to run? The only person we know is you, Patrick."
At my question, Patrick grinned so wide his molars showed.
"You worry too much, boss. I'm Patrick. The Patrick."
Election preparations were in full swing.
Patrick had indeed founded a political party.
The party's name was Akbayan ng Katarungan.
It was a combination of Akbayan, meaning "shoulder-to-shoulder" or "companionship," and Katarungan, meaning "justice."
The Companions of Justice.
A name signifying that they would fight for justice and support one another. It fit perfectly with Damaya, which meant "compassion." We simply called it Akbayan.
Patrick began gathering people under the Akbayan banner. I expected a crowd of useless opportunists, but surprisingly, quite a few prominent figures showed up. There were people I had seen on the news and in newspapers. People whose names I actually recognized.
I even saw the section chief in charge of special visas whom I had met in Manila. The section chief came up to me and thanked me about a hundred times. He went on and on about how my aura had been extraordinary even back then, and how he always knew I would become a great man. I wasn't the one running for office, so I had no idea why he was thanking me.
Other people also approached me, pledging their absolute loyalty.
Why? Why are they pledging loyalty to me? I'm the ultimate opportunist here.
Having nothing else to say, I just told them I would be watching them closely.
In any case, I had been worried about the lack of people, but the staffing issue was resolved to some extent. In my opinion, Patrick shouldn't have gone into politics; he should have opened a headhunting agency. It was a waste to let connections like that go to waste.
Just when I thought we had crossed the biggest hurdle, the real obstacle arrived.
The astronomical election expenses.
An unimaginable, staggering amount of money was required.
Does running an election really cost this much?
I had only ever voted; I had never run an election myself. Didn't you just mount some speakers on the back of a truck and yell a bit? Didn't you just hang up banners and hand out flyers?
I should have just been satisfied with the Zamboanga mayor's seat. Blinded by greed, my judgment had been clouded by the desire to take all of Mindanao. Instinct always triumphs over reason.
Mindanao is the second-largest island in the Philippines. It contains an immense number of provinces and cities. There are also thousands of village-level administrative units called barangays.
While we couldn't field candidates in every single district, we had to at least put people forward in the provinces and major cities.
The annoying thing about Philippine elections is that, for example, in a mayoral race, you don't just elect the mayor. You also elect the vice mayor. They don't run as a joint ticket; they run separately.
The mayoral election is separate, and the vice mayoral election is separate. The vice mayor isn't appointed by the elected mayor; they are also an elected official.
The mayor heads the executive branch, while the vice mayor serves as the leader of the local council. The mayor proposes policies, and the vice mayor heads the council that reviews and approves them.
The problem is that because they are elected separately, they are often at odds. If they belong to different parties or have different ideologies, they spend their entire terms bickering.
Thus, to keep things running smoothly, you need to match the mayor and vice mayor as a set.
Governors and vice governors, mayors and vice mayors. We only planned to run candidates for those key positions, but even that was incredibly difficult. There were simply too many major districts.
Mindanao has 27 provinces, 33 independent cities, and about 400 municipalities. We couldn't even touch the thousands of barangays.
The amount of manpower and money required was staggering. Just thinking about running campaigns in all these districts gave me a headache.
So, we decided to use the easiest, most uniquely Philippine method.
In the Philippines, there is nothing that cannot be solved with guns and money.
We pointed guns at those who wanted to run against us, and we handed cash to the voters. It was far more effective than any half-hearted campaigning.
Sandro joined the fray as well. Claiming that threatening people was his absolute specialty, he asked me to leave it to him. While this seemed to reveal the secret behind his "excellent negotiation skills," he drew a firm line, insisting that negotiation and extortion were entirely different things.
Members of Sandro's syndicate also crossed over to Mindanao to assist with the campaign.
A few candidates who had been threatened went to the police to complain, but the police—who had already pocketed our bribes and shared a special relationship with Damaya—simply turned a blind eye.
We didn't campaign for individual candidates.
Instead, we focused our efforts on campaigning for the party itself: Akbayan.
We shifted our strategy from "Vote for Candidate X" to "Our party, Akbayan, is different."
We will be your new friend. We will walk beside you. We will share in your misfortunes and your poverty. We will change everything with a fair standard. Become our partner in reform. We will change the corrupt politics of the Philippines.
Just as Damaya defeated the rebels and brought peace, Akbayan will bring a new era of politics.
We brandished guns, handed out cash, and focused on party-centric campaigning.
Once we shifted the direction of our campaign, Akbayan's approval ratings suddenly soared. Akbayan became a major political force. The election of many of our candidates seemed highly likely.
Consequently, newspapers and media outlets began covering us. The more exposure we received, the higher our chances of winning grew.
As our victory became more certain, people started showing up from all over, carrying bags of cash.
We hadn't even done anything, yet they came to us begging us to spend their money. How incredibly generous of them.
I had been so short on cash that I had even sold off all the cryptocurrency Jericho Padilla had left behind. Yet, simply because our chances of winning had increased, people were bringing us money.
Unable to ignore their sincerity, I distributed suitable positions to them, matching the size of their contributions.
Seeing how politics worked, I realized why politicians became so obsessed with money. Since they spent so much to get elected, they naturally wanted to recoup their losses.
I wasn't even the one running, so I had no idea why I had spent so much of my own money. I had literally scraped together every last cent, even emptying my pockets, to contribute.
Money could always be earned again, but I believed now was the time to go all-in.
As election day drew near, Akbayan's popularity reached fever pitch. It was so intense that it was recorded as a social phenomenon.
In a harsh reality where making a living was difficult, Akbayan was a source of comfort and salvation.
Furthermore, Damaya's positive image rubbed off on Akbayan. Throughout Mindanao, public opinion of Damaya was incredibly favorable. Unlike the previous rebel groups who ruled through force and fear, Damaya actually helped the people. They had been weak but kind.
But now, those kind people had gained power. They had liberated the populace from the terror of the rebels. They had eliminated the factions that kidnapped people at random and plundered anything of value.
And now, that grateful savior, Damaya, was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Akbayan. They were aligned with Damaya, an organization that actually paid wages and provided jobs. The two had joined hands.
People who had been oppressed by the rebels decided to give them a chance and cast their votes. Those who had suffered at the hands of the rebels declared they would vote for Akbayan.
Young people chose Akbayan in hopes of securing a job with Damaya.
This alone was impressive enough, but the candidates running under our banner were also familiar faces from television. Famous people. Since they appeared on TV so often, they seemed like highly capable individuals.
Both the party and the candidates were approved. On top of that, they bought people drinks and meals. There was absolutely no reason not to vote for them.
And then, election day arrived.
Akbayan's candidates triumphed in key regions. It was a landslide victory.
We won in every single district we absolutely had to win, and we even secured victories in many of the highly contested, uncertain areas. We won in almost every district where we fielded a candidate.
Akbayan became the overwhelming majority party in Mindanao.
Patrick became the mayor of Zamboanga.
Seeing Patrick as mayor made him look like a completely different person. I congratulated him warmly and applauded his success.
Yet, a corner of my heart felt a bit empty. Even though I was the one who had urged him to run, once he actually won, I felt a strange ambivalence.
From my perspective, it was far more convenient to have Patrick continue managing our affairs. He was just that flawless at his job.
However, when comparing the benefits of having him work under me versus having him serve as the mayor of Zamboanga, the answer was clear. It was right to let him go.
Even so, I couldn't help but feel it was a waste to let him leave my side. No matter how much I hesitated, Patrick had to leave the nest. It was the right path, but I couldn't help but feel a lingering sense of regret.
Bohol, Philippines. Late at night, Gogo Casino office.
Manager Nam Yong-woo was quietly transferring Gogo Casino's source code onto a USB drive.
Not long ago, Nam Yong-woo had received a covert offer. An offer of 5 billion won if he could deliver Gogo Casino's source code to replicate the site. A staggering proposal that included full authority over the new online casino if he wanted it.
His hesitation hadn't lasted long. He had accepted immediately.
Lately, Nam Yong-woo had been feeling insecure at Gogo Casino. He felt as though his position was disappearing, leaving him on shaky ground.
It hadn't been like this in the beginning. After all, Nam Yong-woo was the one who had built Gogo Casino. His position within the company had been rock-solid.
But Gogo Casino had grown too large.
It had become a massive platform with hundreds of thousands of daily active users and tens of billions of won flowing through it. It was no longer a scale that Nam Yong-woo could manage alone.
Developers far superior to Nam Yong-woo had been brought in. While Nam Yong-woo had built the program using basic addition and subtraction, these new developers, who utilized calculus with ease, were working for less than a fifth of his salary.
The sheer number of developers superior to him made Nam Yong-woo deeply anxious. Even the guys emptying the trash cans seemed more capable than him. He was terrified that he would eventually become someone who could be replaced at any moment.
Furthermore, as the casino, cryptocurrency, and exchange systems became integrated, even more people were brought in. That was a field Nam Yong-woo knew absolutely nothing about. The place was crawling with monsters. They wrote code for concepts he couldn't even comprehend as easily as breathing.
He had built Gogo Casino, yet he hated how his own traces were being erased. It felt as though his very existence was being wiped out.
And finally, Ana had appeared, claiming she needed to launder the money. He couldn't trust Ana. She was an entity that had suddenly popped out of nowhere. He had said he would trust her, but he couldn't.
Nam Yong-woo had kept a close eye on Ana.
During this time, Patrick had vacated his post. He had left for Zamboanga for the election, and Ana had stepped in to fill his shoes. In addition to money laundering, Ana was now handling key matters for Candy Tour. She was doing the very work Patrick used to do.
Nam Yong-woo hated that. At the very least, Patrick's position should have belonged to Nam Yong-woo.
While Ana, being Philippine-born, was naturally more familiar with local affairs than Nam Yong-woo, it still shouldn't have been this way. That position should have been given to Nam Yong-woo, the creator of Gogo Casino. At least, that was what Nam Yong-woo believed.
Nam Yong-woo was deeply disappointed.
His unstable position within Gogo Casino. His lack of knowledge regarding new technologies like cryptocurrency and exchanges. His hostility toward Ana, which went beyond mere jealousy over her taking the position. And finally, the sense of betrayal he felt toward the boss.
These emotions had driven Nam Yong-woo to accept the offer to steal the source code.
Although he was currently in charge of Gogo Casino's overall operations, that was not enough.
The opportunity was now. Right now, all of Alex's businesses were in complete chaos. No one had the luxury to pay attention to Candy Tour or Gogo Casino. All eyes were focused entirely on the election.
This was the perfect time to quietly slip away with the source code.
Copy Complete.
Manager Nam Yong-woo pocketed the USB drive and quietly walked out of the office.