The barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Election (BSKE) is a littles over a week from now. In our village (Talandang, in Tugbok District, Davao City) the candidates consist of one re-electionist and two new ones. All the three are our friends. In fact one is the husband of a niece.
We are certain that in such a situation many will believe that our priority choice from among the three is our relative by affinity. Perhaps they may be right in their assumption. However, there is something that could play a significant role in making our final choice.
We are looking for the candidate who can best explain why until now the garbage bins delivered by the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) some three years back have remained dumped (piled if you want) in one corner of the barangay center compound. These have not been distributed to where these should be for the barangay inhabitants to dispose of their garbage.
Some of the bins are deteriorating or damaged and the huge pile is now slowly covered with grasses of the tall kind. On the part of the barangay officials we have talked to they simply informed us that they are waiting for the final CENRO instructions including the guidelines in the distribution and utilization of the garbage bins.
The CENRO on the other hand, despite the number of times that we have written about it, appears to be detaching itself from any responsibility in the final distribution of the garbage receptacles. The office did not even bother to explain why it has not facilitated the distribution of the receptacles to the areas in the barangay that are strategic so majority can use the bins
The CENRO’s clearly manifested lack of concern for the property of the city that were bought in millions of pesos leads us to believe that the office may have already delegated the responsibility of distributing the garbage bins to the barangay officials. The likelihood is that the delegation may not have been communicated with clarity to the equally unconcerned and callous officials of the village.
Thus, in the next Monday’s BSK election we will trade our support to the candidate for barangay chairman who can best explain the circumstances of the non-distribution, or who can offer convincingly his/her plan of what to do with the aging garbage bins that are symbols of the city officials’ neglect of some important assets of the local government.
Of course in some barangays in the same district as ours, we learned that the officials did their own initiatives in distributing the garbage bins and make use of the dump trucks donated by the national government through the office of one Partylist congress representative, to collect the garbage deposited in the bins and bring the refuse to the city’s sanitary landfill facility in New Carmen. We fully appreciate their action of distributing the bins and putting them to use as intended.
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Some decades back politicians from either the administration party or the Opposition had to do a lot of convincing to known personalities in the barangays to run for Chairman, these days there are already an avalanche of people wanting to run for chairmanship or members of the Sangguniang Barangay. So do with those aspiring for membership of the Sangguniang Kabataan.
Of course the reason is obvious. Despite the absence of fixed monthly salaries and allowances barangay and SK officials are now assured of allowances the amount of which is based on the income classification of concerned villages. And there is also this possibility of the full implementation of a questioned law on giving barangay officials fixed salary and allowances.
Other than the perks earlier mentioned, today the monthly allowance is more than enough guaranty to take a loan (mostly in group) from financial institutions like cooperatives and local banks including usurers hiding behind legitimate businesses.
Over and above those potential financial sources, infrastructure projects whether in hundreds of thousands or in millions of pesos in cost, now require the acceptance of supposedly the Sangguniang Barangay although most of the time signed only by the village chairperson.
For contractors hoping to immediately collect the project’s full payment, they cannot help but become willing offerors of certain amount to the barangay officials just to facilitate their collection.
From whom did we get this apparently confidential information on a deal in corruption? Who else but from our many contractor friends who are making millions from government projects.
