There would also be desire to advance the common good. Common good includes law and order, basic infrastructure, services (health, education, welfare) and civic facilities. Interpersonal relations won't necessarily be intimate but there would be civility and mutual respect -- and neighborliness, the glue that binds members of a community in solidarity.
This solidarity is known as the "communitarian spirit" -- or sense of community, of belonging, of a basic loyalty to one another. It is what makes neighbors feel comfortable with one another and with their surroundings. It impels them to rise above self-interest for the sake of the common good.
But does this communitarian spirit characterize our typical barangay? Check out the neighborhood hours after the garbage truck has made its rounds. Chances are the streets are garbage-strewn again. Cluttering one's neighborhood bespeaks a devil-may-care attitude, a mentality that says: it's everyone-to-himself, to hell with others, so what if it violates sanitation or clogs the drainage, no one gets arrested anyway!
This thoughtless, irresponsible behavior betrays how uncivilized our communities are. To be civilized, the dictionary states, is "to be educated in the usages of organized society." How organized is our community?
Trashing the space one shares in common with everyone is uncivilized behavior. People who can't take care of waste they generate are like immature kids without toilet training. They are citizens of the community but they feel no obligation to keep it clean or sanitary. They may be vocal about wanting an honest, clean government but they themselves do nothing to make it so. Feeling no compunction about dirtying public areas reflects an undeveloped sense of citizenship, a shallow grasp of one's responsibility as a member of the community.
It also reflects a basic inability of governmental and social institutions to set norms and enforce standards -- a triple failure: of governance, of institutional roles, of citizenship.
If the barangay is a prism or microcosm of Philippine society, it is no wonder that outsiders say we have a "damaged culture" -- one that is at war with itself, a people at odds with one another, a dog-eat-dog civilization. It doesn't help that many of our countrymen literally eat dog.
Then there's the collateral side of the garbage problem: scavengers foraging for the merest bit they can find to sell or feed to their family. It further trashes our environment as foragers mindlessly scatter their leavings. But how else can they survive; so we're in a bind. As the elder George Bush would put it, we're in deep doodoo!
Musing about garbage in the barangay brings on a feeling of unease. It makes one realize that this is the underside of a society with pretensions to being civilized. But there it is, portraying us as a people who see nothing wrong with trashy neighborhoods or ambient poverty. Isn't this the same as saying we are a callous and unjust society? A barangay that cannot or will not take care of its trash, its derelicts or its poor, if it can be called a community, is an irresponsible one.
The sight of trash and scavenging is damning evidence of incompetent or corrupt public administration. Incompetence and corruption, in turn, signify a non-performing citizenry.
When do we start performing as true communities do? When do we adopt the communitarian spirit and be civilized? Take it up with your neighbors. Or talk to Chito Oclarit, Paking Beja, Tess Queja or Charles Culanag! #
A former UN executive and vice chairman of the Local Government Academy, Manny heads the Gising Barangay Movement and writes Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays. valdeman_esq@yahoo.com
