P-Noy's barangay

Today is the day for us voters to get back against non-performing barangay and over-aged Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) officials. Through elections, we can oust them from public office and replace them with people who are more qualified and can do the job better. Like any other elected officials in our country, barangay officials are supposed to render public service since their mandate is not to preserve their office as their personal and private domain.

A barangay is the smallest political unit in our country. Barangay elections are always billed as non-partisan political activities. Non-partisan in the sense that the candidates need not be organized or affiliated with any mainstream political parties.

The above cited statement is in the law. But the letter and spirit of the law are more often wantonly violated, if not negated, by the realities on the ground.

National politicians count on their grassroots support from barangay officials who naturally look upon them as their patrons. We have at least around 42,025 barangays all over the Philippines. But more than thrice of this total are candidates coveting to be elected or reelected into office.

This should not be a surprise considering that barangay chairmen nationwide will share among themselves at least P51 billion in Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) for this year. As barangay captains, each has a share out of this outlay in IRA at their disposal for development programs and projects, according to the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).

However, the amount will not be equally divided among the different barangays since the IRA shares depend on the earnings of the local governments. Under the existing allocation scheme, the bigger the revenues generated by a local government, the higher IRA share it is entitled to get from the national government.

Under our country’s Local Government Code, 60 percent of national internal revenue taxes go to the national government and 40 percent is allocated to local governments as IRA. Barangays get 20 percent of the IRA, provinces and cities receive 23 percent each, while municipalities get higher allocation of 34 percent.

Aside from the P51 billion reasons why people run for barangay and SK elections is that barangay captains and kagawad (councilmen) also get individually allowances of at least P8,000 to as high as P15,000 a month. It becomes less if there are more barangays to divide the amount of allocation.

No less than our country’s highest elected official, President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III is set to cast his vote in his own barangay that has jurisdiction over their family’s co-owned Hacienda Luisita in his home province of Tarlac. It will be a homecoming of sorts today for P-Noy when he casts his ballot at Central Azucarera Elementary School in San Miguel, Tarlac. It was here where he belaboredly waited to cast his ballot during the country’s first-ever automated polls in the May 10 presidential elections. Incidentally, today’s barangay elections are back to manual voting.

In the official list of registered voters of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), Mr. Aquino will be voting at precinct 175-A, where more than 900 people are set to vote. The school has three precincts, with a total of almost 3,000 voters. He scored a hometown victory in the presidential race where one of his rivals included his second cousin, former Defense Secretary Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro.

So when it was clear he was the runaway winner in the counting of votes, P-Noy got the idea of asking the barangay captain in Hacienda Luisita, Eugenio Perez, to administer his oath-taking at the Quirino grandstand in Luneta last June 30. That was the time the Chief Executive was still smarting over the “midnight” appointments by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

It included the appointment then of Associate Justice Renato Corona to replace retired Supreme Court (SC) chief Justice Reynato Puno. However, the SC upheld Corona’s appointment as not covered by the election ban nor by the prohibition in the Constitution that bars the outgoing President to issue appointments. But that is already water under the bridge.

But old wounds between the President and Corona were opened by the latest rulings handed down by the SC involving petitions against the Palace removal of so-called “midnight” appointees of the Arroyo administration. Some bright minds at the Palace gave P-Noy a bum advice when the latter reacted too strongly, though wrongly, to attack the status quo order of the SC that involved only one alleged “midnight” appointee and not all appointments issued by Mrs. Arroyo before she stepped down from office on June 30.

Before things got out of hand, Executive Secretary Paquito “Jojo” Ochoa stepped on the breaks of further presidential outburst against the SC ruling on that case. Ochoa explained the SC ruling on the implementation of President Aquino’s Executive Order (EO) No. 2 only involved the particular petition filed by Bai Omera Dianalan-Lucman, who was named commissioner of the Office of the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) that carries a Cabinet rank.

P-Noy issued EO 2 following his assumption to office to revoke the appointments made by his predecessor two months before the national elections last May. Ochoa clarified these officials will stay in office until Oct. 31 this year, or until a replacement has been appointed or designated, unless his designation is extended in the meantime.

By the way, the Comelec earlier granted the Palace petition filed by Ochoa for exemption from the same ban on presidential appointments and power to remove government officials during the campaign period for the barangay and SK elections.

As the so-called “little President,” Ochoa will again be manning the Palace post for the weeklong absence in the country of President Aquino. A day after the barangay elections, the Commander-in-Chief is flying to Vietnam for his state visit and to attend the Asean Leaders’ summit being held there this week.

As in his first official travel abroad in the US last month, P-Noy will bring along a lean entourage of government officials with him in Vietnam, and not an entire “barangay” as we say colloquially.