One would expect that the less prestigious political slots would invite less violence than their more formidable counterparts.In the Philippines however, this is far from true. The most basic unit of governance is the Barangay,usually translated as"village"by Filipinos but that definition is a bit unwieldy for Westerners. A"village"to Westerners denotes a separate municipality. By that same token, the Philippine concept of "municipality" is also counter-intuitive according to Western conceptualisation. For brevity's sake I will give a quick rundown of the governmental structure(s) from the provincial level on down, while leaving explanations, historical and geopolitical asides for a more lengthly post where I will delve into all the fun stuff.
In rural areas of the Philippines, a plot with 2 or 3 homes is called a "Pangkat."A grouping of houses is called a "Sitio"(Site). A grouping of Sitios is called a"Purok,"(Zone) of which to 3 to 7 Puroks are usually grouped together to form a single "Barangay"("Neighbourhood" or "Sector" is the closest idiomatic translation into English though as I did mentioned in my opening paragraph, Filipinos almost always choose to translate it as "village"). There are rarely an additional delienation, "Districts" which are found in the largest cities. Here on Mindanao they can only be found in Davao City. Districts are a grouping of contigious barangays but the label is only used for administrative and infrastructural maintenance purposes, it does not involve any level of governance (for example, there are no "District Councils").
A barangay is the most basic form of community government in the Philippines. Each barangay has an elected "Punong" ("Chairman,"or as he is commonly known,"Captain.") Along with the Chairman is a "Sangguniang Barangay" ("Council") composed of 7 members elected to their positions. Each member of the council is known as "Kagawad" ("Councillor" is the idiomatic translation of the word, not the literal rendering which would be more akin to a community elder.Literal translation of the English word"Councillor" into Tagalog would be,"Konsehal"") and automatically chairs their own committee. The 7 Committees are as follows:
I) Peace and Order, which acts much as a municipal policie station does for the larger community;
II) Appropriations, Finance, Ways and Means, handling all financial matters, including disbursements;
III) Education;
IV) Health. Each barangay has a Health Station which deals with innoculations, municipal and larger government drives to eradicate unclean and unhygienic conditions, etc.;
V) Agriculture;
VI) Tourism;
VII) Infrastructure;
In addition to those 7 Committees and their respective 7 Chairmen slash Councillors, there is an 8th slot on every Barangay Council ex oficio, a member who is elected by a separate electoral mechanism held concurrently with the Barangay Elections for a second, exclusive governmental entity; Unlike most elected positions and their respective entities, this entity is known by its Tagalog label exclusively,"Sangguniang Kabataan"(Youth Council), or for purposes of expediency, simply,"SK.". The SK has its own storied history which again, to make this post readable I will reserve most of the backstory for a separate even more long winded post (as if my being even more"long winded"were even possible).Sufficient to say, the SK Councillor chairs the barangay's "Youth and Sports Committee" so that is corrent to say that each Barangay Council has 8 committees instead of the technical 7.
Each Barangay Captain in a given municipality belongs to the"Liga ng mga Barangay,"or the,"Association of Barangay Captains" (alternatively it is also know in English as,"League of Barangay Captains"). 1 Captain out of the membership is elected by the League to Chair the organisation. The chairman is then given a seat ex oficio on the "Town Council,"or "Sangguniang Panglunsod."Additionaly, each Chairperson of each municipaity within a given province then also belongs to the "Provincial League of Barangay Captains."Again, 1 of the Chairpeople belonging to the Provincial League is elected, by the membership, to Chair the Provincial League. This process is repeated at the national lever as well where all Provincial Chairpeople belong to the "National League of Barangay Captains."
Ideally the barangay would be, as its creator the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos would often say,"The best example of democracy in action."In reality it is no different than any other facet of Philippine political life with just as much corruption and alot more violence since the media rarely digs deep into barangay level matters.There are no foreign do-gooders coming to monitor the ballot stuffing, the strong arming, the threatening and murdering. Life goes on just as it always has in this respect.
Generally, unless Congress says otherwise, Barangay and SK Elections take place every 5 years (originally it was a 3 year term but was lengthened by an ammendment,RA#6679). This year's filing of Certificates of Candidacy began on October 01, 2010, the same date that has been erroneously reported as the commencement for the latest COMELEC Gun Ban. The Barangay/SK Election Gun Ban began on September 25 and will last until November 10, though consid and will last until November 11.The expiration of the COMELEC Gun Ban comes 3 days before the Re-Balloting from the last National Election. It may have been more intelligent to simply have the Ban remain intact an additional 72 hours.RE-EDIT:Indeed it finally occurred to COMELEC to. Do just as I suggested.On November 11 it released a statement ammending the Ban,but only for the 3 provinces in which re-balloting was to take place (Basilan and Lanao del Sur here on Mindanao and Bulucan on Luzon).
Like the gun Ban for the National Elections this applies even to dedicated workers such as police and soldiers in uniform, if not actually on duty. IF on duty armed personnel may not wear any partisan materiels, even down to campaign pins and stickers. Unlike the National Election however, there has been precious little enforcement of it but it is all about grabbing headlines anyway. As Americans often say,"If you criminalisation gun possesion, only criminals will have guns." On October 05 the PNP (Philippine National Police) announced that it would be implementing a more stringent programme of interdiction and enforcement with regard to that Weapons Ban. In reality this is an empty gesture with PNP National Director general Raul Bacalzo ordering all PNP to take a"proactive approach."That was it, nada, zilch do NOT pass Go and sure as hel* do NOT collect your money, typical empty headedness and headline grabbing. without even a cursory blueprint why even make the comment?
Just for consideration, in the 24 hour period beginning October 04 and ending October 05 there were 25 arrests for the Gun Ban, including 1 PNP officer and 1 AFP soldier. Considering that the Gun Ban is universal in that the entire nation (outside of one's home) is under the Ban, 25 people from 7,107 islands were the only ones carrying weapons? Here on Mindanao you can pick any street in any rural town and you will have many more than walking around locked and loaded. From commencement on September 25 until October 04 there were 219 violations on the Ban, including 17 dedicated and uniformed personnel. Among the seized weapons were 4 airguns (yep) and 40 bladed weapons. Some of these "dangerous weapons" are "Bolos" (machetes) used by farmers in their daily labour and one wonders why virtually all Filipinos disparage their own government. Subtracting bladed weapons and airguns one sees...Well one sees what one always sees here.RE-EDIT:The final COMELEC numbers are in for the Barangay/SK Election Ban,excluding data for the 9 day extension for the 3 provinces in which selected municipal units were subjected to a Re-Ballot;Ergo,for the original Ban of September 25 to November 11,940 individuals were arrested as violators.Of the 940,18 were PNP personnel,9 were AFP personnel and 31 were civil servants.Of the 940 arrestes,only 120 were actually fomally charged...think about that for a moment or two...
COMELEC, the national electoral authority announced on September 30, 2010 that it would be clustering precincts were applicable but unlike the last National Elections on May 10, 2010 it will only cluster them in areas where the total voting pool does not exceed 400 Registered Voters so as to expedite the process. Time is crucial because unlike that afore mentioned National election, the Barangay/SK Election will be manually cast due to pricing and logisitical issues. In the National Election the limits for clustering involved possible voting pools of 1000 voters, with 5 to 7 precincts being clustered in normal situations.
COMELEC has placed 2,301 barangays nationsiwde on its "Hotspot List."there are 2 sub-classifications for barangays on the list: Category I:Intense political rivalries and/or a history of political violence on or around election time, and , Category II: Recent insurgency related violence. Amazingly COMELEC places a mere 224 barangays in Category I. I reckon that a single Mindanowan Region could easily top 224 barangays having had a recent tangle with political violence, let alone a rivalry. The number"2,301"itself just seems a bit ridiculous on its own but how much more so when 1 realises that as of September 30, 2010 the nation has a total of 42,025 barangays.
Nationwide, ARMM (Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao) has the greatest number of barangays in Category II (Insurgency Related), with 734. the genius who farmed these statistics could have just as easily picked up a census count for the total number of barangays in ARMM and simply used THAT figure since every single barangay in ARMM has been neck deep in insurgency since 1973. Even more amazingly (yes, it IS possible), ARMM is listed as having 34 barangays in Category I (Political Rivalry/Political Violence). While not every barangay in ARMM has RECENT political violence the number is unbelievably high. Perhaps one long and dreary rainy day I will do a calculation on both categories, for ARMM.
On October 07, 2010 it was announced that this October 25, Barangay/SK Election Day, will be a National Holiday via Presidential Proclamation. So as to ease the voting process for the majority of voters who if they had to work, would more likely than not be unable to vote.
Speaking of the last National Election, as noted in my entries devoted to that election, COMELEC had classified certain areas within Mindanao (Lanao del Sur, Sarangani and Basilan Provinces) as "Failed Elections" (in addition to 1 area in Visayas, and 1 in Bulucan on Luzon). As noted in a prior entry the 1st Special election (re-election) took place back in June. The next round for remaining areas (Lanao del Sur and Basilan in Mindanao) had been set for September 25 but had to be nixed due to a snafu with the PCOSs (Precinct Optical Scanner) machines needed for automated voting, involving contractual and pricing issues with the machine's lessor, Smartmatic-TM. At that point COMELEC re-schedualed the Special election for October 02, but alas, the same contractual problems persisted and so a 3rd date has been set: November 13, 2010, welcome to our world. COMELEC has allocated 21 Million Pesos (roughly 400,000 Euros) for what should be, but probablly wont be, the last balloting for the 2010 National Elections.
Indeed,in the not too distant future the Barangay Electoral System could face a radical overfaul,as opposed to being overhauled BY radicals...which could happen sooner than we know.Take for example,HB#1171 (House Bill,or,Congressional Bill) sponsored by everybody's favourite rabble rousers,the Rodriguez Brothers of Cagayan del Oro in Misamis Oriental Province.Rufus,and his brother Maximo Jr.,a Party List hack with ABAMIN (Abante Mindanao) take issue with the ever increasing cost for what they see as a pointless endeavour.-ndeed,excepting the Bill's authors being who they are it was a point worth considering.Don't take my word for it though,simply talk to Rodolfo"Ompong"Plaza,scion of Caraga's very own homegrown political dynasty who himself authored a Resolution that pretty much said the same thing during the 14th Congress.
One point made by the Rodriguez Brothers is that in 2010,a year in which the Philippines is saddled with the largest budget deficit in Philippine History (not that"Philippine History"is all that long but still,thanks a lot GMA),it seems counter-intuitive (actually,it was an adjective more along the lines of..."Fu*#ing Insane").However there very well may be an actual method to the Rodriguez madness in that in August 15,DBM (Department of Budget and Management) released 3 billion Pesos to COMELEC to offset any over-riding costs related to the Barangay/SK Elections.
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