Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — A new card game has taken the Philippines by storm, garnering hundreds of fans in just a couple of months from its release.
The card deck called Politricks was invented by two young entrepreneurs, RB Ting and PJ Lim. They say they hope to teach one valuable lesson to the voter population – understanding the core of Philippine politics through satire can make a voter wiser and principled.
Ting said, “We wanted to make a satire actually, so we tried to do it in a way that’s not very preachy… We want people to play as politicians so they can understand how politicians think…and understand where they’re coming from and why they do these things.”
The two say they conceptualized the game as Ting, who is Filipino-Chinese, had tried to explain to his Singaporean friend, Lim – who works for a foreign company in the Philippines – the nature of Philippine politics.
Lim said, “I think Politricks is one avenue. If you and your friends play the game you learn about all the tricks that happen in Philippine politics and then this actually triggers a discussion, and from there we hope that the youth can actually make a decision for themselves – like what they want from the Philippine government and who they want to support.”
They say it took them a year to finalize each card’s concept and design. They say they also made sure to manufacture the product in the Philippines so to support the local industry.
The goal of the game is for a player to win hypothetical elections by garnering as many votes as possible through any means available, including some of the most sordid and dark vices that have emerged throughout the history of Philippine politics.
One of the cards in the deck is the “Pork Barrel Scam” card, which refers to the controversial P10 billion Pork Barrel Scam allegedly masterminded by Janet Lim-Napoles. While another one titled “Ghost Voter” alluded to the widespread practice of legislators to cast votes for absentee colleagues.
Another card called “Free Funerals” is a swipe at the practice of politicians to pay for funerals in exchange for their tarpaulins and campaign materials to be exhibited during the wake.
Another interesting detail is found on the play-money cards which depending on the value – 100 million to 1 billion – bear tag-lines such as “pang-yosi” (cigarette allowance), “pang-kape” (coffee allowance), or “pang-meryenda” (snack allowance), taking a swipe at the trivial jargon used by ruthless politicians to refer to money favors.
With 104 cards each satirically interpreting the characters and corrupt practices that plague the political playing field, people have 104 avenues of discussion to spark thought on all that is horribly wrong with Philippine politics.
The decks are available online and in select board game cafes in Metro Manila and are priced at P600 each.
