His is a situation that needs no further reading: the phenomenon surrounding his politics keeps getting better and better as the years progressed; he can't be underestimated given the chance to flourish; he can bring about enough resources to his associates and charge unspeakable accusations to his competitors; he can subjugate corruption at the sidelines or intensify its interest in the register; he can retool his system if some of the opportunities presented strengthens his cause; just as nurturing that public trust at the very beginning and ending it better than when he found it.
It is quite easy to accuse a barangay captain if his own community doesn't live up to its promise. And although command responsibility may well be too sagacious a description even before an election could begin, and all the limitations of time spent being emphasized at the end of his term if he has failed to deliver the goods somehow, that his is just a mandate that calls for immediacy and intuitiveness.
If that same barangay could provide a production of opportunities within a specific period, as well as in providing a promise of provision to its electorate, it will necessitate a unique turn from utter negativity into a much more acceptable approach to its challenges. And the captain of the crew, this newly-elected barangay captain, who is facing his fearful trip yet has all the means of providing that promise to his people, perhaps in containing any outgrowth of corruption and mismanagement, and breaking it into services that would provide food on the table, not merely from its own increasing reputation, but more so with the promise of its own economic programs.
How sufficient would it be if that same barangay, through the initiative of its leader, could manage some of those seemingly insignificant services that they could extend, such as acting as courier to light and water bills, computer services to indigent students, small time businesses to the unemployed and scholarships at the tertiary level to name a few. Although I would recommend that all of those services should have its own corresponding fees, manageable charges at that, specifically on those programs that would entail leg work and assistance from its staff, just to ensure quality on its services, and in as much as these fees would institutionalize certain opportunities in the barangay other than constricting it with the negativity of vote-buying.
A captain who isn't working at all has a ghost ship at his disposal. Provided that this barangay captain has managed to swallow his pride and platform for the benefit of the "payables" before election, this same barangay captain also still has to sweat it out to remain indispensable as such in his commune and to minimize the variables of his vote-buying entry by providing an outlet for the electorate and containing eventually their extra-curricular activities, pre-election style.
But, it would be quite a tall order to impose a clean slate to a barangay captain immediately after an intense vote-buying before and on the election campaign. Chances are, his election accounts has to have some sense of reclamation as far as his election transaction is concerned. He could not begin, as was the prevailing practice goes, to do his duties unless he first takes a crack at refunding his expenses, regardless of its means. And this would have been contained if his own barangay, his own flock to look after to, has that extended option in its own economy by taking advantage of its sufficiency, courtesy of its income-generating programs.
And while the phenomenon that is the art of vote-buying has now been considered a practice in almost all areas in the country, and is slowly been inserted in our way of life as a necessary tag come election time, it still doesn't make any sense as far as his office's inherent capacity to earn is concerned. And this is a happenstance that is reflective of the economic instability of a community. That if this once private practice that has now finds its expression in public can only be subdued by altering some of the amenities in a barangay, particularly in its capacity to generate an income from its serviceable budget, this would not have been a huge setback when matters of money is brought out in the open, because it is only through the economic standing of a community that a barangay captain is adjudged in the end.
I have tried to emphasize the need to rehabilitate certain economic structures in a barangay so as to be more relevant and utilitarian to the immediate needs of its constituents. The problem, however, starts even before a barangay captain could perform his logistics and start strengthening the economy of his community. That in every election, and especially in the barangays as Exhibit A, an individual has its own monetary allotment even before he starts picking up his choice. And so the rehabilitation kicks in right at the very start since most of our political aspirants, including our barangay captain next door, has to wrestle and fight his way through the economic necessities of his barangay by dealing the usual suspects of vote-buying and coercion.
The economic development of a community should at least place itself atop the lists of its priorities. And within so short a period, all those involved in the formation of its policies (if there be any) should come up with a measurable agenda either to initiate a completely new program for its electorate, or to economize existing ones and reform it in ways that would initiate interest again from its former function. These options could actually spell the definition if and when an elected branch, such as in a multi-faceted office of a barangay captain, can deliver a service that is both working for the neighborhood and working through it.
And so it becomes equally important that a barangay captain should introduce himself in to the fold. It is his duty to settle out any issue that concerns relapsing because in doing so he is not only minimizing a potentially damaging situation, he also has that rare consent in enhancing better relations within the community which could lead income-generating projects in his barangay a little more than a spoonful of sugar. Gone are those days when functioning as a barangay captain only means mediating at a dispute between two warring housewives or directing a clean-up at a nearby creek, this new captain of the community, so they say, has to initiate a little brokering in response perhaps of our recent economic bailouts, since his is still a work-in-progress that only his office can probably bring into fruition.
The concerns of the community, however, which has lately been put to the test by its recent barangay election, can only cover a portion of our economic difficulties, which incidentally is its major concern at times. Since a barangay, by its own mechanism, should function as its own grind, that it should strive to reproduce, as much as possible, in its own machination through programs and projects so as to generate a sustained income for its own development. Otherwise, it relapses itself eventually as it crumbles in both numbers and nomination, along with the faith of its people over its sovereignty.
In the same manner that this is a situation that needs no further reading; that the phenomenon surrounding his politics keeps getting better and better as the years progressed; that he can't be underestimated given the chance to flourish; that he can bring enough resources to his associates and charge unspeakable accusations to his competitors; that he can subjugate corruption at the sidelines or intensify its interest in the register; that he can retool his system if some of the opportunities presented strengthens his cause; just as nurturing that public trust at the very beginning and ending it better than when he found it.
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