Author Topic: Assorted Characters in Barangay Elections  (Read 581 times)

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Assorted Characters in Barangay Elections
« on: October 24, 2007, 10:15:22 PM »
By Joe Espiritu
Columnist
Bohol Sunday Post


The red flag is up, and there they go! However, we do not see who are on the lead. There are assorted characters running for barangay posts. There are hot potatoes, cold tomatoes, luscious peaches, rotten apples and assorted nuts competing for nine posts per barangay. Those are; one barangay chair - captain if you like -, seven kagawads and one Samahang Kabataan chairman. For every one kagawad position, there are at least ten candidates, for every chair position; there are at least two candidates. Lucky are those chairs, which have no opposition.

Although this exercise is supposed to be nonpartisan, that is; no political parties are to poke their noses into this affair, it would not be logical to assume that those candidates will be left alone. Barangay chair candidates will feel the pressure or presence. Incumbent municipal officials and aspiring ones would try to implicitly influence the situation. The former will be doing it to be assured that no one will rock the boat, particularly the most populous thus influential barangays, and the latter for easy political mobilization in the future.

There are barangay candidates, who will claim that they have the support of top municipal officials and big business in Jagna. However, if that might be true, those supporters are in for trouble. The former might lose their voting base and the latter might face unnecessary trouble, which would need the services of lawyers.

Barangay officials under the thumb of big business might find it difficult to persuade their constituents that the presence of big business in their vicinity is good for them.

Sad to say, choices for top barangay positions will be based on popularity. It does not matter if the candidate is a nincompoop or a certifiable idiot. Election laws say that anybody who is a citizen of the Republic, of legal age and who can read and write can be a candidate. The only other requirement is he must pass a drug test to prove that he is not a prohibited drug user. It does not specify that he must pass a psychiatric test or even an IQ test. A moron with enough logistics to back him up would win any post.

Elective barangay officials come from all walks of life. Some just came out of the woodwork. They had not even managed a sarisari store, some did put up businesses that flopped miserably, some does not even have the good graces of his family and kin, and now they are offering to run the barangay. Of course, there are some, who are really competent but alas, some of them do not have enough grass roots contact.

There are those who threaten that if they will be elected, all appointive officials in the barangay will be replaced. That would be a bad political strategy. Not only that he will lose votes of those appointive officials but also of their families and kin. Besides, except for a few who had been political favorites of the powers that be, most of them are chosen for their ability, capability and willingness to serve.

Appointive officials are the workhorses of the barangay.

A kagawad may rant and rave in the session hall - if he can find the way to the session hall -, never contributing a resolution, an ordinance or even a coherent idea throughout his whole term yet still receive his honorarium. A barangay secretary, or treasurer or barangay health worker or tanod must perform to justify his pay. Besides, the local government has spent more money for the orientations and seminars on them than the kagawads. Assuming the sweeper candidate will win, where will he find replacements for jobs, which are thankless, with low pay and indeterminate hours? Competent one will demand salaries, which a Jagna barangay could barely afford.

This is not to say that Jagna has a lack of talent, which could run barangay affairs. There are, but how to persuade them to serve will be difficult. They are retirees and senior citizens, who have done their share of service and are bent on enjoying a hassle free life. However, there are some workaholics, who cannot just gad around carousing. They might accept the job to keep his brains from rusting.

Barangay officials are advised to grab him fast but they must be sure that this chap does not have the tendency to dominate the show.

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