How did the SK lose its impact and relevance?
During my younger years, the elections for the KB or Kabataang Barangay (later renamed SK or Sangguniang Kabataan) generated more excitement and dynamism in the localities as compared to the elections for the Barangay Council or Sangguniang Barangay. The young ones, during my time, were very active. They spearheaded many cultural and sports activities. During national elections, the SK volunteered to serve as watchers or as volunteers in election quick counts or watchdog activities under the tutelage and guidance of such deputized citizen arms like the NAMFREL and other civil society initiatives.
That is why during our era, elections among the KB or SK were hotly but peacefully contested. Various groups would be formed upon the initiatives of the young ones themselves. The good thing during those times was that politicians and political parties did not interfere with the KB or SK polls. Today, there is a very glaring loss of interest among the young on SK polls and activities. Many localities had zero aspirants for SK chairpersons and councilors. In other places, there were token candidates just being pressured to run by their parents who are politicians themselves.
Over the years, the young KB and SK leaders have been corrupted by their elders in the towns and cities. Many of them were tutored on how to do payroll padding and how to do ghost projects. The young ones were mentored on how to falsify official receipts, how to formulate fictitious feasibility studies, how to ask for cash advances, and how to tamper with receipts in liquidation reports. They are trained on how to buy votes, how to cheat in elections, how to do malicious and unfair campaign propaganda, and how to deliver pretentious and insincere campaign speeches. In short, the young SK members have been initiated into the dirty game of their elders in politics without scruples, and elections without conscience.
Of course, there are exceptions, few and far between. There are still few good and even excellent young men and women among the SK. They are the "breath of fresh air inside a catacomb of stench and decay." Over the last 20 years, after the EDSA Revolution the new generation of the millennials has been taught the rather twisted ways of politics by Generation X and the Baby Boomers. And so, we, the seniors, have no moral right to criticize the young for the degeneration of the SK. It was us, after all, who influenced them the wrong way.
Our young ones are but a reflection of how we brought them up.
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