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Manny Valdehuesa .

Third part

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IT’S important to be mindful that good governance is essential for the progress of the community. For the community is the principal factor in producing a strong and stable foundation for a vibrant democracy and the stability for a strong republic.

In our political system, the citizen’s unique role in governing the community is an essential requirement and indicator of good governance.

This role is unique in that it can be performed only in one’s immediate community (barangay), which has a “direct democracy” system of government like the one in Switzerland and in Israel—whereby the citizens are part and parcel of the governing process, directly participating, actively initiating or approving measures that assure good governance.

They do so as members of the Barangay Assembly, which is their local parliament, and which has powers of Recall and Initiative. In other words, they can act directly to adopt rules and regulations by collective action and even remove non-performing officials or correct their unacceptable acts and decisions.

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A Filipino who absents himself from his Barangay Assembly’s proceedings—and therefore fails to perform his role in his community’s governing process—causes its governance to malfunction by allowing it to be controlled by public servants instead of by sovereign citizens.

Unfortunately, this system has not been explained and properly promulgated (although it is ordained by the Local Government Code). So it is not understood or appreciated.

As a result, Filipinos have a dismal record in governing their immediate community, the barangay, which is a microcosm of the national republic. In fact, it is a small republic.

It has a territory to safeguard and develop, a government to oversee its economy and wellbeing, a population that establishes and legitimizes not only its own government but all other government units (municipal to national), and (though limited) it has sovereignty or power over its affairs.

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But instead of asserting their sovereign power—over their officials and communal affairs—Filipinos let their officials behave like oligarchs and rulers instead of the public servants that they are.

Consequently, practically none of the barangays/small republics can be said to enjoy good government. This is so because the idea of good governance as every citizen’s concern has not sufficiently suffused the community’s values and attitudes.

It is not well established in the minds of Filipinos that it is citizens that give substance to the principle of consent of the governed—which provides legitimacy to government and validity to its acts.

Neither is it sufficiently understood by Filipinos that if they do not perform their role in governing the community they, in effect, withhold or withdraw their consent to its officials’ right to exercise their powers of office.

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At the least, truant citizens subtract from their local government’s authority, weakening its legitimacy and its confidence to do what it does.

Common sense alone should make one realize that the absence of popular consent, or lack of it, weakens a government’s standing or credibility, making it difficult to fulfill its mandates effectively.

Thus it is imperative for citizens to consider the negative effect of their failure to participate in the governing process. Whether they know it or not, their absence from the process affects the status of the community as the base on which the Philippine Republic is anchored.

It’s obviously a bad thing to weaken the foundation of our political system, or to undermine it by being a truant citizen. One must remember that the barangay is the platform that either holds up the political structure or causes it to crumble.

If this platform is steadfast and supportive of government, the nation stands firm and prevails over the challenges confronting it. More on this next time.

 

(Manny Valdehuesa Jr. is a former Unesco regional director for Asia-Pacific; secretary-general, Southeast Asia Publishers Association; director, development academy of Philippines; member, Philippine Mission to the UN;  vice chair, Local Government Academy; member, government peace panel during the administration of Corazon Aquino; awardee, PPI-Unicef outstanding columnist. An author of books on governance, he is chairman/convenor of Gising Barangay Movement Inc.. E-mail: valdehuesa@gmail.com)

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