Trying to save our village

(Part II)

My first article last week on “North Greenhills 39 Years Ago” succeeded in making several readers reflect on their own village conditions. One remarked that her village is still in its “childhood phase” while another called his village situation “adolescent,” since there was a lot of bickering competition.

Village of grandparents

From glamorous Santacruzan sagalas most of us ended up as grandmothers. Within the first 27 years in the village, our preschool children rapidly entered grade school and passed on to high school. Then several went away to finish college and some went to other villages. Eventually, many got married and we became grandparents.

Terri Bautista’s daughter, Marilou married Pablo Madrileno, while Cecile married into the Salonga family. Ramon Go helps his father in the wholesale sugar business, while brother Junie tried setting up a disco club in Bacolod. Vit’s sons took after him and went into various businesses. So did their wives. The youngest, Eric and his family stayed with his parents. I see his Magnolia chicken vans parked nearby. Quiet Yeng Guiao, coaches the Purefoods basketball team. He used to court Shubee Poe, who eventually married a Singaporean. Brothers Cesar and Jojo Poe helped their dad run El Tigre Security. Both are married.

J.P. Campos manages his own firm ESCO-TOTAL lubricant while Tonypet Albano, son of Isabela 1st district Congressman Rudy Albano is RPN 9 president. The TWO SONS OF ONCOLOGIST DR. DEO CUSTODIO IS DEO GERARD, a lawyer and doctor. Deo Gerard is doing advanced studies in endocrinology in the US.

Ernie Jr., Angel and Margarita Palanca became doctors like their parents. The youngest, works in Chicago with his dentist sister, Margarita. The Pobletes are both doctors. Their two married sons live next door to them. None of Dr. Tony and Dr. Aurora Perez’s children became doctors. Adora, now Mrs. Basa, lives in America. Brothers Tony Jr. and Angelito are businessmen (Camp Suki).

Election for all vs. the election for few

Our neighbor, Attorney Alviar expressed very well how our neighborhood felt about the sad turn of affairs in North Greenhills.

“All of us ‘old timers’ still recall when annual elections in our village were festive affairs, which coincide with the annual meeting of the general membership every December. We made sure that there would be a representative for the foreigners, the Chinese residents and the doctor residents. We tried to involve the government officials as well. Those whose terms were about to end, welcomed the elections as they would soon be relieved of their responsibilities of serving the affairs of the village on voluntary basis. Then the difficult part was convincing our neighbors to take their turn in serving the Board. Candidates were chosen and even “coerced” to being nominated right at the meeting. Coerced or not, they would serve their terms diligently.

“Those days are long gone. Now, you do not have to coerce or force people to run for the Board. They actively campaign. This became especially true when a group of directors introduced and institutionalized the ‘proxy-voting,’ instead of encouraging residents to come out and vote. Ever since, we never saw changes in the names and faces of those serving in the Board.

“Lastly, in order to perpetuate themselves, they even amended the By-Laws by converting the term limit of one year to two consecutive terms, which was precisely put in place in order to give a chance for everybody to feel the responsibility of serving the Board. Constitutional amendments were done twice without general referendum meetings.

“How then can we have an honest to goodness elections where we have a level playing field and not where one party or group in power have all the aces up their sleeves?”

Comelec chairman Demetriou sites the differences between corporate elections and village elections

During these times, we were privileged to meet with the famous lady justice, who became well known for her courage. Normally, political bigwigs get away from being arrested for major misdemeanor, but Judge Harriet Demetriou, without fuss, courageously sentenced Calauan Mayor Sanchez to life imprisonment. As COMELEC chairman, her advice has been sought in large village election irregularities. After all, each community is the basic unit of a country.

The NGA election then was supposed to be last December 11, 1999, but since certain By-Laws in its Constitution were not clear, she advised a postponement for January 2000 to make sure all loopholes are sealed.

According to Atty. Demetriou, village elections are actually like corporate elections. It makes use of voting by proxy. While the corporate directors usually number just a few — 11, 13 or 15 — representing the stockholders, it is easier to control.

The voting residents in village elections number a hundred to 300 may be open to foul play

(COMELEC Chairman Demetriou’s headache is discovering then that the Philippines had five million fake voters. This number could easily elect a president.) What could be worse is resorting to proxy voting.

She warned that unless the validation of proxy ballots is given enough time, like a few weeks, it would not be a FAIR FIGHT. COMELEC’s Demetriou noted that our December 11, 1999 election allowed only an hour before counting to validate the votes. Corporate stockholders’ election, even take three months to accomplish the validation process. This is very important for village election for it must consist first the listing of the qualified voters and collecting their specimen signatures and verifying these.

Don’t trust anyone

Dale Carnegie often said that one of the best principles of human relationship is never trust anyone. Corporations who went bankrupt are family owned businesses, where a trusted sister or brother would take advantage of the situation and abscond with the money. Due to the trusted accountants, many religious schools have suffered enormous financial losses. I never realized that corporations could also be stolen until I met a senior lawyer, who recounted several such stories.

To understand the village situation, our past NGA village presidents and resident lawyers analyzed where anomalies can occur in the village election process. Our neighbors, Senator Franklin Drilon, whose wife is a member of the then NGA COMELEC Committee, called on ACCRA lawyers to polish the election rules of our existing By-Laws.

For example, it often happens that ballots or proxy forms are issued for the still unoccupied lots. Proxy ballots could also be issued to residents who have relocated elsewhere. Can one lot of a resident with two married children living together be issued three ballots? Rules on enfranchising lessors of a resident’s house must also be clarified.

The SEC clarifies the dangers of losing a village

It took three crises in our village to alert us to the major infractions of our constitutional laws that could eventually lead to the “loss” of our village.

Several amendments in the Constitution were being made, without calling for referendum. This enabled them to perpetuate their governance. When one of the past NGA presidents, Gen. Edon Yap complained that they were doing so without any SEC permission, he was ignored. So, he filed a case against them with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Edon then, was all by himself, but he won the case. The second complaint filed against the recent NGA Board by Atty. Alviar and Atty. Perrie Oliva, was so serious that a larger group backed them up.

The complaint centered on the financial anomalies, which used up all the savings of approximately P4 million of village association dues to cover the major cost of building the clubhouse, which were not supposed to be charged to the residents. This led to the sudden increase of 80 percent in association dues, and non-issuance of financial reports of four years.

(To be continued)