Philippines: Struggling with Direct Democracy

Valdehuesa: Ignorance makes ours a “bonsai” republic

By Manuel Valdehuesa
Monday, September 15, 2008
Street Talk
Source: http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/cag/2008/09/15/oped/manuel.valdehuesa.street.talk.html

We’ve dealt with the barangay as a government, as a corporation, and as an economy. Anyone who doesn’t know why these three aspects are important or how each is supposed to be managed has no business demanding or preaching about good governance. And any official who doesn’t know how to make each one functional has no business staying in office.

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It’s been over a decade and a half since the Local Government Code of 1991 became law. It was meant 1) to correct the imbalance of power between the national and the local, 2) to lessen excessive centralization at the top, 3) to devolve what properly should be exercised by the intermediate and primary levels of government, and 4) to empower the community by giving the people an official role in overseeing its affairs.

But while the first three are substantially operative, the fourth and most important for the proper functioning of democracy – empowerment -- has been ignored. The people are still uninvolved, powerless, unable to participate in governance. Instead they are controlled and manipulated by the barangay chairman and his cohorts. And it’s all due to ignorance.

Ignorance about the barangay as a government -- with a direct democracy and a parliamentary form -- has turned it into an oligarchy of mostly incompetent officials that feed on its income. Ignorant chairmen not only trivialize the role of the people, they arrogate their power and govern the community arbitrarily, turning the kagawads and the sangguniang kabataan into puppets. Equally ignorant of their role, the citizens are mere spectators instead of actors in local governance. Even civil society seems clueless; they’re focused on the upper governments.

The legislative governing body called Barangay Assembly -- the local parliament consisting of all adult residents -- does not convene or hold deliberations. The people themselves are ignorant of their role in it. Failing to meet or decide collectively, the community cannot determine let alone express its collective will. It cannot form a consensus on anything. Voiceless, they are helpless, vulnerable to manipulation by the forces of corruption.

Worse, the leading citizens surrender the community’s fate to power-obsessed little trapos. They reinforce the barangay chairman’s thinking that he is a little president/commander-in-chief when in fact he is a little prime minister presiding over a parliamentary government -- with the people as members of parliament; as such they’re supposed to be the foil against abuse by the chairman. It is a non-performing government.

Ignorance about the barangay as a corporation makes it rely on subsidies, mainly on the internal revenue allotment (IRA) -- which the officials spend like an allowance instead of as capital for development. Clueless about the barangay’s corporate powers, they don’t organize enterprises to generate their own revenues. They do not enter into joint ventures with other barangays or tap private equity to capitalize enterprises including cooperatives, micro-lending or even a modest public utility like a water system, a shuttle service to and from the market, to and from the school, or wherever people need to be ferried. The idea of a subsidiary company to develop profitable opportunities is alien to them. They have overseas workers interested in ventures to create employment or income for those left behind, but there’s no initiative to do so. It’s a non-performing corporation.

As an economy, there is no attempt to explore the development of their land, labor or capital. They don’t inventory resources. Rural barangays don’t exploit opportunities offered by their nature-rich and exotic areas -- for ecotourism, recreation, adventure, or agribusiness. There are tropical beaches, lush forests, rolling plains, winding rivers, and underground wealth that are neglected. If at all, these are exploited by economic predators who strip their environment and leave nothing for future generations. Even their forest products and herbal goods are taken right under their noses to be exported or patented, depriving generations of their present and future value. It’s a non-performing economy.

Urban barangays neglect the production, marketing or financing possibilities in their own backyard. Entrepreneurs, craftsmen and assorted talents in their neighborhoods cry out to be discovered or supported but are ignored. Their fate is left to opportunists that trawl the community and strip it of its human and other resources.

Barangays form the base on which our republic’s politics and economics is built. But ignorance about the people’s role in it and the failure to develop it is making it a “bonsai” republic!

Ask Arturo Sanvictores, Ed Layug, Ruben Vegafria, or Hernan Agpawa why this is so! #

A former UN executive and director at the development academy of the Philippines, Manny heads the Gising Barangay Movement and writes Mondays, Wednesday, Fridays.

PHILIPPINES: Barangays need to Practice Direct Democracy as Prescribed by Law

Valdehuesa: All we have is a caricature of democracy

By Manuel Valdehuesa
Street Talk
Friday, September 12, 2008

Source: http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/cag/2008/09/12/oped/manuel.valdehuesa.street.talk.html

TO INSTITUTIONALIZE true democracy, it is important to ensure that it is operative at the grassroots, the primal base of a political system, whence emanates state sovereignty and all government authority.

To speak of the grassroots is to refer to one's community - in our case, the barangay. It is our basic political and economic unit.

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One wonders whether anyone knows that governing a barangay means giving due attention to its three dimensions -- as a government, as a public corporation, as an economy.

Unless these three elements are recognized and appreciated, all we have is a caricature of democracy at the grassroots and a non-performing base for our national economy. Only in the barangay is it possible to exemplify democracy as "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people."

How is the barangay a government OF THE PEOPLE? Before 1991, it was merely an appendage to the municipal/city government, with no powers or resources and no legal personality. Its officials were basically coordinators, with a quasi-official role and no real authority.

Today, it is a full-fledged government with power to tax, to police its jurisdiction, and to exercise eminent domain or expropriate private property for public use).

Like the municipal and upper levels, it has three branches: executive (office of the chairman), legislative (sanggunian), judicial (lupon). And its officials are elected by the people.

Thus it is a government of the people. They create it through their votes, just like the higher levels.

Is it a government BY THE PEOPLE? Here one encounters serious difficulty; because in fact it is not the people who govern but their presumptuous servants.

In the context of the local government code, "government by the people" means it is a direct democracy -- like the canton in Switzerland and the kibbutz in Israel -- the Athenian model of direct democracy. There all villagers convene periodically to discuss and decide how to manage or regulate their affairs. They pass laws or ordinances, or approve them directly -- meaning the people govern directly.

It is the same in our case as stipulated in sections 384 and 397-398 of Republic Act 7160 (Local Government Code). Barangaynons are supposed to govern directly. They do this as members of the Barangay Assembly, which is supposed to convene periodically to deliberate on community concerns, to initiate measures for its welfare, to approve its budget, to ascertain the will of the community on any issue, and so on.

But in no barangay is this happening. On one hand, the officials are illiterate, ignorant, or mindless about the law; on the other, the residents are unaware or ignorant of what the law binds them to do. Thus neither the rule of law nor democracy is operative in the community.

Is it a government FOR THE PEOPLE? Despite the claim of the officials, it is not. It serves their purposes more than the people's. Except for token benefits derived from the pork barrel of their political bosses, which they distribute to gullible segments of the community, the officials spend most of the barangay's income to cover their own allowances/expenses. They serve their personal and family interests more than the people's. The allowances they allocate are for their own pockets. The jobs they create are for their sycophants or supporters.

The benefits they distribute are for the gullible, the naïve or the squatters -- people who pay back such "generosity" with their votes. They don't even clean or cover the neighborhood canals, or build sidewalks so people with no vehicle are safe and comfortable. Their reading center or library, if any, is laughable. There are no skills development programs, nor the cultural or educational sort.

Go over the substance or efficacy of ordinances/projects they initiate, which they claim at election time as "achievements;" mostly political gimmicks! Rarely, if ever, do they consult their constituents. What little good they do advances their interests more than the people's.

This portrait of governance at the grassroots is but a caricature of democracy, a make-believe arrangement, where the sum total of a citizen's participation is to cast a vote on election day, only to be forgotten till the next election.

Much of this can be blamed on the elite classes who leave the fate of the community to incompetent but politically savvy sectors. More on this topic in subsequent issues. But if you can't wait, talk to Bencyrus Ellorin, James Judith, or Fr. Nathan Lerio of Camaman-an.

A former UN executive and vice chairman of the Local Government Academy, Manny heads the Gising Barangay Movement. He writes Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays. valdeman_esq@yahoo.com