Good news, Kapitan!
No need to campaign this year.
Bad news, botante: you also do not get to replace him this year.
The Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) have been postponed to November 2028, giving incumbent barangay and SK officials a five-year term.
Five years.
In Cebu, that is no longer just a term of office. That is practically a long-term relationship.
“Kap, kita pa ta ani?”
“Of course. Five years pa!”
To be fair, postponing the elections has practical advantages. Elections are expensive. There are ballots, election workers, logistics, transportation and security. Officials also get more time to finish projects and programs already underway.
Continuity can be useful.
But there is another side to the barangay coin.
Elections are also about accountability. They give voters the opportunity to say:
“Salamat, Kapitan. Padayon.”
Or:
“Salamat, Kapitan. Husto na.”
Now, I know of one Kapitan from the southern part of Cebu City, from a barangay where the smell of danggit and other sun-dried treasures is part of the neighborhood’s personality.
He wanted to please everybody so badly that the stress apparently got to his eyebrows.
He lost one brow.
Eventually, he had it tattooed.
His constituents had the perfect reaction:
“Hopefully, Kap, ang kilay extension molungtad og dugay.”
But they wished for another extension too.
Not another eyebrow.
They hoped Kapitan Kilay would grow enough guts to exercise his own intellect and make decisions knowing one uncomfortable truth:
You cannot please everybody.
And that may be the perfect lesson for a five-year barangay term.
A Kapitan cannot govern by constantly asking:
“Unsay ganahan ninyo?”
Because everybody has an answer.
One wants a basketball court. Another wants drainage. Another wants streetlights. Someone wants a fiesta. Someone else wants the fiesta money spent elsewhere.
And somebody will complain anyway.
That is the problem with trying to please everybody.
Eventually, you please nobody.
Leadership is not a popularity contest. Sometimes, leadership means making a decision somebody will dislike, then having the courage to explain it and take responsibility for it.
And perhaps our Kapitan Kilay is not alone.
Somewhere in another barangay in Cebu, the Visayas, Luzon or Mindanao, there may be another Kapitan who has the title, the office, the tarpaulin, the Facebook page and the microphone.
But what he sometimes lacks is the most important equipment:
the balls to govern and the guts to lead.
The BSKE postponement gives every Kapitan more time.
Now let us see what they do with it.
Five years should mean more than five years of excuses.
It should mean completed roads, working drainage, useful programs, responsive services and accountable spending.
Because five years is enough time to finish a road.
Or announce one.
Or put up a tarp announcing the announcement of one.
So, Kapitan Kilay, the term has been extended.
Now extend the courage.
Use the intellect.
Make the difficult decisions.
You can tattoo an eyebrow.
You can extend a term.
But you cannot tattoo courage onto a leader.
From Cebu to the rest of the Philippines, our barangays do not need leaders whose greatest achievement is pleasing everybody.
They need leaders who can say:
“This is what needs to be done, and I have the courage to do it.”
Because in 2028, the people will get their ballot back.
They may forget the speeches.
They may forget the tarpaulins.
But they will remember what you did with the time you were given.
So, Kapitan Kilay, let the eyebrow stay.
Let the term run.
Let the projects speak.
And please, grow a little more guts than eyebrows.
Otherwise, five years later, the only thing that will have truly grown…
is the KILAY.
