A POLITICAL community is composed of families that work together in order to achieve the goals and objectives or the bigger political division. A community leader is one who works collaboratively but critically with the bigger political system.
However, the bigger political system, like the city or the municipality, must do everything for the good of the smaller political subdivisions.
The community is not to be seen as a group that will serve the political ambitions of the “big leaders” rather, a community is created for the bigger political division to deliver better services.
Last May 14, the whole country sought, and elected the best men in their community through popular voting.
The young people were also given the opportunity to serve their fellow young people.
The people have spoken, and we have our elected community leaders.
What saddens me today is seeing a division within the circle of leaders. One affiliated with another and so on. This is political patronage. I call it as “political extended families.”
The ruling group had their own groups and campaigned for them.
The 2016 defeated group had also made their own flock, and so as those scattered groups, known as independents.
My humble assessment of maturity in our political game in this country is still very low.
We are still in the primitive stage of choosing our leaders. We are teaching our young people to follow out primitive ways.
Political patronage will make the whole community suffer.
Political patronage is a very hard thing to wrestle with. Most often, this will become a culture in the community.
The young people having been trained in this will bring it to the very end of their political careers.
I had experienced this once in a group where I am involved with.
Political patronage and division have sipped into the very beings of the officers. A majority group has decided to pull out their support for the incumbent and changed him for a “better” leader.
They were successful in the ouster of the incumbent.
Now, they want that the new leader will always agree with their proposals. It turned out that the leader has his own mind.
Now, they are speaking of “wala utang na loob.” This is a manifestation of political patronage. We buy the free will and the intellect of the leaders.
Political patronage assassinates the human dignity.
Another thing I would like to mention is vote-buying. Why cannot our Comelec stop this?
The stakes are higher this year. How much more next year?
I fear that the barangay elections were simply used as an acid test for the coming 2019 elections.
Why is Comelec deaf of the issue? It is not the work of the citizens to go to a court of laws and file complaints. It is for Comelec to verify complaints and file the charges.
I won't believe Comelec in saying that there was no complaint in the recent election.
I hope and pray that I am wrong, and that my comical mind does not focus on the truth. A barangay south of this city is now suffering for the barangay chairman did not come from the ruling party.
I observed that there are no longer any traffic enforcers in the place. The traffic and street lights are off. The road constructions are too slow. And worst I no longer see “tanods” in the evening.
It seems that as of the moment, the barangay is left on its own by the local government unit (LGU).
Where is this? Find it out for yourselves.