With the Mandanas-Garcia ruling of the Supreme Court, local government units will be getting a lot of money in the form of what used to be called IRA (Internal Revenue Allotment), now called National Tax Allotment (NTA). The increase in what the LGUs will receive was estimated at 38%. That will be a whopping increase.
That in effect will be like democratizing the distribution of the cash being collected by the national government. The problem is, can our local government units handle the money in terms of competence? Not to mention resisting the temptation to corrupt a big part of it. It could then be called democratizing corruption. Instead of national government officials getting a lot of that money with their sticky fingers, a big part of it will be devolved and local officials will have more cash to steal from the government coffers.
In terms of competence, for instance, just recently, there were a lot of complaints that the number of targeted covid-19 “vaccinees” were being missed as many local government units did not have the expertise to get jabs into arms. They had to request assistance from the Department of Health which could not be given pronto.
Likewise, in disaster-stricken areas such as those ravaged by typhoon Odette, so much resources were being given to them to relieve them of their suffering but the LGUs concerned were not competent in the proper and immediate distribution and utilization of such.
And in remote areas, local politicians are actually warlords. For the utilization of the additional windfall, they would be employing more of their supporters and relatives to make their political dynasties even more entrenched. Expertise of the new personnel would be the last thing in their minds.
The worst thing though about warlords is that they will treat, as they always did, the coffers of their local governments like these were their piggy banks. And they usually stay in power until forever. When they graduate from one elective post, they would make their wives or sons or other close relatives occupy their seats to keep these warm while they rest for a year and then get back as there would not anymore be a legal impediment.
The antidote to such a sorry state is for the people to be more militant in guarding their rights to public funds. That is of course good to the ears. But that will have to take a lot of education on the part of the people which is almost impossible to attain in the short term. Hopefully, after many years, a critical mass of the populace will really be educated enough to stand their ground in making sure that any additional public fund to be received by their local governments will really be used for the benefit of the people.**