Once more about the barangays and the SK!

During a meeting last week, Cebu Gov. Gwen Garcia reported that the League of Provinces of the Philippines (LPP) agreed to support the call to postpone the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections and to extend the terms of office of the present barangay and SK officials to 2007 to help the national government in this time of fiscal crisis. The LPP also has the support of the Liga ng mga Barangay Cebu Provincial Federation and the presidents of the Associated Barangay Councils in Cebu.

Again, I’d like to point out that while this move is laudable, especially for those barangay captains who may have the confidence of their constituents, what about those non-performing barangay captains who should have been removed already for their inefficiency or incompetence? As we suggested earlier, we should go further than a mere postponement of the barangay and SK elections and find out whether in these harsh times, these two lowest forms of government are necessary.

I’d like to reiterate that a study of the viability of the barangay and SK should be conducted while all of their officials are placed in a political limbo. I dare say that the Filipino voter should be told the real truth about the barangay and the SK, that their elections have become a battleground of political puppets of various political parties yet the law clearly states that these elections are or should be apolitical. Someone ought to tell that yarn to the Marines!

Again, I reiterate my call that the barangays be overhauled and repacked to properly serve their respective constituents. The barangays today have become nothing but miniature City Halls with a complete line-up of captains down to councilmen, but the reality is they’re really doing nothing but to act as tools of politicos. The barangays should be overhauled to do only three basic things: security, sanitation and to help the Office of the Building Official (OBO) prevent rampant squatting… that’s for barangays in the urban areas.

If garbage is an issue in a barangay, then it should prioritize the collection of garbage. If it is peace and order or the drug problem, then it must address these security issues. Only through the total repackaging of the barangay can the Filipino voter see its usefulness in the community. Like what we’ve said before, if the barangay can help solve our peace and order problems, then we’ve practically solved half the problems plaguing this nation! Now should we discuss the SK again? I guess you know how I feel about the SK… it should have been abolished a long time ago!

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Here’s another good-news, bad-news story. The good news is Congress has finally agreed to abolish the offensive pork barrel! And now for the bad news, they don’t really mean it… they merely abolished the name, but kept the pork! Just when I thought of writing a congratulatory article commending the House of Representatives for their noble act to remove the pork barrel, the very next day, we read a report that Congress has only given up the pork barrel in name. In turn, they merely renamed or reworded it to be included in a "line item budgeting." As the old saying goes, "same dog, different collar!" How shameful that Congress would try to pull a fast one on the Filipino people... as if we were all born yesterday!

Renaming the pork barrel is the second oldest trick in the trade and we’ve heard that line before... and it is time that Congress gets the message from an irate Filipino nation that they should never think of us Pinoys as so stupid that we can’t spot obvious changes like that! Again, I’d like to reiterate that it is for this very reason why we can never trust this Congress or the previous one, especially in changing the Constitution, simply because our congressmen would always put their personal interests ahead of the interests of the country, and this recent move is the best and the latest example we can find!

If you ask me, we should clearly define what legislators ought to do, and that is to legislate and enact laws where they are necessary. When the laws they enact are not enforceable or cannot be enforced, then it is their job to redo what they have done to assure the public that the laws they enact can be enforced for the greater good of the country.

The Filipino people hate the taste of "pork" simply because most of it lands as ugly monuments or landmarks for these misbehaving congressmen or senators. For instance, throughout Metro Cebu, numerous "skywalks" or "pedestrian overpasses" have sprouted but they are virtually useless because the pedestrians still cross our roads with impunity. Come on, why would you climb a flight of stairs when you can simply cross the street under the pedestrian overpass which doubles as shade? This is due to the fact that many of these overpasses were built without consulting the local traffic management or the local government unit as to whether these infrastructure are a necessity.

Come now, even the little kids know the reason why these pedestrian infrastructure were built in the first place... so that the name or even the face of the congressman who had them built would be enshrined in the structures forever — as a sort of permanent election poster! How I wish that there is a law penalizing anyone from putting his name in a public infrastructure. Of course, this is wishful thinking… Congress would never dare make laws that would penalize its own!

Removing the offensive pork barrel is only one of the things that Congress is being required to do as a sacrifice; the other thing is to come up with austerity measures or fiscal reforms. I certainly want to know whether the House of Representatives would give us any information on this, or would they again hide this in another name.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com. He also hosts a weekly talk show, "Straight from the Sky," shown every Monday, at 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.