Wednesday, July 18, 2007 Delilan: ‘Prostituted’ SK By Erwin Ambo Delilan The Buzz
I’VE already heard a lot of talks about the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) especially that its election together with the barangay officials is set on October
29.
There are some who propose to abolish the SK for reasons that it’s a “non-entity” in barangay governance.
Others also say that the SK can be likened to a “prostitute” in the barangay being used and abused by barangay captains or mayors in towns and cities or governors in the province.
I agree with the adjective “prostitute” in describing the SK. And I am in favor for its immediate abolition. Because I myself was also once an SK chairman in
Barangay Cudangdang in EB Magalona sometime in the early 90s.
When I ran for SK chairman, I thought all the while that I could be a young leader who will have full authority to decide on what to do in molding my fellow
youth then to become better citizens of our community. That hope, however, turned into a nightmare prompting me to resign from the SK in the middle of my six-year term.
Why? It was because of the SK that I was charged of estafa by a softdrink company in Bacolod just for P4,000 unpaid debt.
The case rattled me and my parents as well. But thanks to Judge Evelyn Gengos of E.B. Magalona-Manapla Municipal Trial Circuit Court for the understanding.
However, it also took two years before it was resolved.
Yes, I am not ashamed of telling my story... my sad story as a former SK chairman because that story did not only put me in ‘hell’ but made me also to become a stronger person to face the odds in my life until now. And to tell you the truth about that estafa case, it was not really my own fault. Rather I was only a victim of the “abusive” barangay officials we had at the time who amassed the barangay money up to the last centavos.
Imagine that for the two years and a half of my stint as SK chairman of Cudangdang, I didn’t receive any budget from the barangay because of this... and that... by our former barangay treasurer and barangay captain.
As a neophyte then and since I was so innocent about barangay governance, I thought all the while that what they were saying then were true.
Until I discovered at the Land Bank of the Philippines-Bacolod Branch that before that year ended, Cudangdang no longer had a money in the bank. I asked our council then why because I haven’t been given yet my 10 percent share for the SK.
That was the time that barangay officials also rattled until they admitted that for two years, they spent the SK money for their personal cash advances, cock
derbies, etc.
And believe it or not, the former set of our barangay officials in Cudangdang left the council with almost P400,000 in unpaid cash advances.
Case was only settled as they begged not to run for any public office in the future.
What a very disgusting reality. But this is it. We in the SK went on spending money from our own pockets sacrificing for all the events we had like in sports and cultural until we were not able to pay a softdrink company based on a memorandum of agreement that we signed into because of the promise also of the
barangay to release the SK fund. But it did not happen until I was charged in court.
Another worse experience with SK was during the municipal level election with all the chairmen from 23 barangays in EB Magalona.
Before the election for federation officers, it was our former mayor who gathered all the SK chairmen and made arrangement on whom to vote for president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, and so on and so forth.
Meaning, SK chairmen remain to be the “puppets” not only of barangay captains but also of the mayors and even governors.
And, until now, it’s still the same scenario happening anywhere in the country.
That’s why, I can say that calling the SK as “prostitute” of traditional politicians both in barangays or towns is simply using the right term. So I support the call for the immediate abolition of the SK.
After all, the SK for quite a long time now has only existed for nothing.
Because instead of molding the youth to become future leaders, politicians simply teach the SK how to become “corrupt” like them.
So sad. But this is the reality that I myself can attest.
