A Millionare Needs Your Money

Pledge your money to a politician.

Today on Plaza Bolivar anti-corruption activists asked passersby to donate to impoverished legislators - who earn millions of pesos per month.

Poor guy: Senate Pres. Corzo
needs his gasoline.

Few Colombians consider the legislators to be poor - except, perhaps, the legislators themselves. Senate President Juan Manuel Corzo recently requested a gasoline subsidy - because he couldn't afford to maintain two cars on his salary. Poor guy. Anyway, he said he'd take what he's not given: "I prefer not to rob the state and that they pay me with gasoline," he said.


So, feeling only sympathy for the beleagured legislators, in a nation in which close to half the population lives below the poverty line and many suffer extreme poverty, Bogotanos contributed symbolically to their legislators.

To me, the refreshing thing about this protest was that it appeared to be genuinely grassroots. In other words, I didn't spot any ambitious politicians using the demonstration as a platform to get into office, where they'd possibly do the very same thing.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours