Manny Valdehuesa .
IT will soon be Election Day in our barangay—May 14. Time to review its performance, to renew its management team, to recharge its mandate. So that the things that should have been done will finally be done and the things that should not have been done will be undone.
In other words, it is time for a sober analysis. As I attempt to do so, I can’t help noticing how the fate of our communities has been consigned to the discretion of traditional politicians (trapos).
One has but to look around to see how the sovereign citizens of the barangay are marginalized and manipulated—practically at will—by people who are supposedly their public servants. One sees how even the best educated and most respected citizens are manipulated, their institutions taken for granted or treated condescendingly.
One sees also how every citizen’s right to choose their local officials has depreciated. How many times have barangay elections been peremptorily suspended, postponed, or cancelled?. Without so much as a hearing or consultation!
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And so our society is now at the point where virtually every one of its communities are at the mercy of the trapos, the dynastic rulers, and assorted lords. Drug lords. Gambling lords. War lords. Name them.
Our political landscape has been bastardized! And it is partly because citizens who ought to know better have abandoned their role as the beacon of righteousness and good governance in the community.
One does not see the local professionals—lawyers, educators, financial managers, development planners—anywhere in the course of their community’s governing process. They do not participate in local meetings. They ignore the community’s parliament, the Barangay Assembly and its proceedings, although they are members. They don’t bother to participate or bring their ideas to the commons.
Consequently, they belittle their own sovereignty—and that of others—and their right to wield their authority over their officials and other public servants. If only they would, there would at least be will be good governance—honest, responsible, accountable—in their own community.
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And so we come to the inevitable conclusion that, contrary to the pompous claims of demagogues, the people are not in control of their government.
Meanwhile, one hears about lists of all sorts being prepared by this or that government agency, or even by the president. Lists that concern the citizens of the community but are done by parties external to it; lists whose contents are known only to those who claim to possess them. Drug list, Crime list. Gambling list. Name them!
Even the president claims to have a list. But does the concerned community prepare or maintain their own lists? As far as I know, no barangays prepare or maintain such lists, and none are furnished copies of such lists.
Are the barangay people presumed to be unaware of the goings-on in their own backyard? If so, it would betray how little faith the government and its functionaries have in the people they serve.
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This explains why many people feel they are being taken granted by agencies and operatives that conduct raids in their midst, even at ungodly hours.
The government should stop claiming that all these are done on behalf of the people if the people are treated largely as mere spectators. At the least, they should be consulted. Or they should be informed about who are listed in their own neighborhoods—and asked to validate the information.
The people are the principals of the community. They should have a say in what are being planned or being done in their neighborhoods. And they should not cede their authority over their community to mere public servants.
(Manny Valdehuesa Jr. is a former Unesci 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; awardee, PPI-Unicef outstanding columnist. He is chairman/convenor of the Gising Barangay Movement Inc.. E-mail: valdehuesa@gmail.com)
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