WHAT HAPPENED to the plan of a member of the Davao City Council to craft an ordinance making it a requirement to all vloggers coming to the city and producing vlogs on subjects that have bearing on any of the city’s community and people, to have themselves registered with (or is it to be accredited?) by the city government? Has it already been brought to and initially discussed by the appropriate committee?
We are raising these questions because we now see the relevance of such move to the welfare of the city – specifically its reputation – and that of its people. Initially though we have some apprehensions about the proposal. It is because the vloggers might think that by imposing such a requirement the local government is somewhat infringing their freedom of expression, one freedom that is guaranteed by the country’s Constitution.
However, after seeing the activities of some vloggers doing their thing we eventually saw the need for some kind of regulations. And while we agree that in some vlogs there is possibility that government may be goaded to make positive changes in the present level and style of governance, there are also those that portray the government as one very inutile bureaucracy.
As such, the local government must define certain responsibilities that vloggers will have to be guided with. The same regulations must also make the vloggers accountable for whatever adverse impact of his misdemeanors in the production of his or her vlogs. At the same time the local government must also have the option to acknowledge any positive contribution of the vlogs to the aggrandizement of the city and its people.
We cannot help but appreciate some recent vlogs that strongly promote several places of the Philippines, and the country in general, to the consciousness of the world. But the vlogger did not bypass the local tourism offices and the local governments in the provinces or towns where the vlogger produced his vlogs.
Again, our question, what is the status of that proposed ordinance, is it already out and in the hands of the councilors who are members of the proper Council body? Or, is it still in the recesses of the minds of the one who would likely be the proponent of the planned city ordinance?
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For now we do not have any idea how many of Davao City’s much boasted flood control projects are completed or are under implementation?
Personally we believe that it is during this time that the local government must fast track the work on the still unfinished project, or wind up the work on those that are in its final stages of implementation.
Yes, with strong rains far from the horizon and most of the city’s primary rivers seemingly drying up due to the onset of the El Nino phenomenon, the work on flood control projects become easy and undisturbed.
Unfortunately, it is, and has been, our observation that instead of implementing flood control projects during this kind of season the government instead seems to dilly-dally the work on the projects.
In due time the rains will be back and the low-lying areas in the city will be submerged again. It will be another opportune time for government officials to make a lot of noise about anti-flood projects the decibel of which noise is even louder than the cry of the complaining people most affected by the seasonal floods.
