Why avoid trapo governance

By Manny Valdehuesa

CAGAYAN de Oro is a first-class city; meaning, it is inhabited by first-class citizens. So if you’re a Cagayano, you should be a little more sensitive, discriminating, and wise.

First-class citizens know their rights. They know how to deal with crass behavior, selfish conduct, and shamelessness—especially in politics. They are also knowledgeable and educated. So they should be able to handle, decisively, the aberrations of politics and the abuses of traditional politicos (trapos).

But there’s one task our first-class citizens often overlook: how to keep the same tiresome faces from monopolizing public office.

It is not good for a city to let the same people corner the powers and privileges of public office over and over again. It spoils them and corrupts them. And the corruption becomes generalized.
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Public office is a gift of the people. It is not meant to be reserved by anyone for his own purposes, much less bought or monopolized by any family or political dynasty.

Anyone who seeks to monopolize any office or seeks to buy his way into it should be firmly dealt with; if possible, ostracized or banished from politics.

Such selfish, greedy, and anti-social behavior is unseemly and is expressly forbidden by our Constitution. And any party that tolerates it has no right to seek the confidence or support of the people.

Public office is the instrument for inducing progress and development for the community and society at large. It must be open to everyone, not just to a few, nor just to a family or dynasty. And its exercise should not be sullied by personalism and vanity.
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Development—whether of a person or a community, the larger society and its institutions, or technology—involves change. This means change for the better. Thus, development requires fresh, new ideas and new ways of viewing and doing things.

Thus, to allow monopolies in the city’s power structure is to deny the entry of new ideas and perspectives that are essential for progress and development.

And this explains the importance of keeping trapos from power, or at least from their prolonged possession of public offices—they get resistant to new ideas as they age. Hard to teach new tricks to old dogs.

It should be obvious to a thinking Cagayano, for instance, that there has been little or no change in the city’s infrastructure and amenities despite the long, uninterrupted reign of the previous administration. No new or progressive ideas.
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It was a mistake to allow the so-called Padayon Pilipino leadership to hold sway for such a long period, backed by puppets in the City Council.

The result of that great mistake is plain for all to see: the city now reels from the effects of the party leadership’s personalistic, imperious abusive conduct.

The lesson to learn? It is futile to expect power-greedy trapos is to bring about change, let alone change for the better. Trapos are into politics for what they can gain—personally, as a family, as a dynasty.

They don’t enter politics to serve as much as to be served. They’re not into it to give of themselves or their talent (if any). They’re there to obtain whatever advantage they can gain. One cannot expect dedicated or heroic leadership in a trapo; heroism requires selflessness and sacrifice.

Note that the longer they are in office, the more comfortable they get, the more powerful and influential too—and the more affluent they become. Then it’s virtually impossible to change or remove them. And that’s why first-class citizens should avoid trapo governance.

(Author of books on governance, Manny Valdehuesa is national chairman/convenor of Gising Barangay Movement Inc. valdehuesa@gmail.com)