By Danilo P. Padua, PhD
After several postponements, the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections are finally pushing through Oct 30, 2023. It was a long wait for newbies aching to wrest the reins from sitting officials; for many others, the postponements were welcome development.
Four days before the BSKE, I drove to Barangay Daclan, Tublay, Benguet, together with four others to personally condole with the bereaved family of a recently departed friend and brother. There was no rain the whole day up to the time we departed from La Trinidad at a bit past 5 in the afternoon. Well and good.
What was curious to me as we were travelling within barangay Daclan was that, we hardly saw any tarpaulin or similar campaign materials for the BSKE hanging on the roadsides or near most of the houses. I thought to myself, whoever wins in the elections have no reason to work on how they can recoup their expenses. It will be service, service,service.
When we departed from the house of our forever lost friend, it was raining cats and dogs. Even if I used the fastest rotation of the wiper, it can hardly provide a clear view of the road that we were traversing. I cautioned by companions that we had to drive at turtle pace.
As we reached a certain part of the highway, we were already sure that we were already out of Tublay municipality and surely inside La Trinidad because tarpaulins are hanging everywhere. There are so many of them that they became hard to distinguish from one another. In short, they are there but they are not there! Unless you are driving leisurely (which is impossible to do given the volume of passing vehicles) or just walking, only a few will pay attention to those hanging distractions.
My companions engaged in animated discourses on the BSKE while we were on our way home.
Henry, the most voluble of them, said: “These elections are sure to provide headaches to all of us later on,” noting places like La Trinidad where candidates could probably exceed the 4 pesos or so limit to spend per voter. Mark, the second youngest of the group, tested the hypothesis of Henry, by asking nonchalantly, “why did you say that”? Before Henry could answer, he added that “they are to solve our problems, not to give us headaches. That’s why they filed their candidacies”
“Of course, if they overspend or spend a substantial sum, what will they do? They will always think of ways on how to really get back their “investment”, answered Henry when the coast was already clear for him to speak again. “That means corruption”, he boomed with cautious pessimism. “Because of that they will not perform well, contrary to what they are telling in their campaign brochures. We will be hoodwinked, ‘nabudol ‘ika nga’, if we vote for such kind of candidates”, continued Henry in rapid succession.
Dondon, the most sober of the group gently admonished Henry, “You are too pessimistic. Have you not read something printed in T-shirts that says, Keep on looking for good in others?”
But Dondon put another side of the election exercise, without waiting for any reaction to what he said earlier. “Have you not realized that there are so many senior citizens that are running for barangay positions?” he stated without looking at anyone, and with much careful spacing of words. Hearing no response, he added, “In our barangay, the former chairman was a septuagenarian but he did well in his 2 terms but in his 3rd term, it seemed that he already had loose connections. He no longer performed as well. He was even taken advantage of by his much younger councilmen and even by some barangay officials.”
Hearing that, Jezel, the only lady in the group and still a student, muttered; “That’s why, we should go with younger candidates. Definitely, they will be more alert, more energetic, and definitely more analytic aside from having fresh ideas to contribute. That should augur well for the future.”
Mark clapped for that but had this rejoinder, “Well, we have the Sangguniang Kabataan precisely for that. Anyway, there is an SK representative in the barangay council. And…”
Jezel cut him short saying, “Remember that SK candidates are absent in many barangays in Benguet. If that is true also in other provinces or municipalities, then younger generations maybe out of the equation for development and progress. It will be a pity”.
“That’s their own problem. It’s just a matter of showing interest and concern”, quipped Mark. “Besides, SK representatives are often times used as tools by politicians thereby actually training them as good-for-themselves supposed public servants in the future. That will also mean serving the interest of the politician-patron later. It will be sad days ahead”, he pressed on.
Henry can not keep on being quiet for so long. “Listen to this”, he butted in.“We have heard of barangay candidates for chairmanship and councilmen being mowed down probably by their rivals in other parts of the Philippines. Why on earth would they do that”, he asked no one in particular. True to his nature, he answered his own question.” Well, for power and influence…and of course money. There are contracts to manipulate, relief goods to dispense with like you are a god, and there is more allowance as the barangay grows richer. With those kinds of candidates, bless the Philippines.”
“There you go again, Henry”, it was Dondon admonishing gently. “Maybe, it is a given that there are officials like what you said, but there are more of them who really wanted to serve their constituents and be a contributor to the local economy- and that is also a given”.
The discussions were not dampened by heavy rains but it had to stop when we approached Puguis elementary school, at around 11:30 in the evening. The four guests in the vehicles suddenly and collectively heaved a clearly audible, “Ahhhhh”. Despite the rains, they saw a cyclist ram into a properly parked van on the sidewalk right beside our lane. He slumped to the ground face down in generous flowing waters, as his beautiful bike was carried by fallen rain waters. As we were only about 10 meters away from the accident, we immediately aided the cyclist and saved him from drowning. He was drunk.
A significant length of the road was flooded with half-tire depth of rain water but we braved that. We turned back to where we saw a couple of minutes earlier, a parked police car with its flashers on near the Divine Grace Hospital. The two policemen assigned to the car immediately followed us and attended to the cyclist who almost drowned.
Well… Let’s go out and exercise our right to vote for the BSKE, on Oct 30, 2023.**
