COMELEC AND NON-PDAF THINKING OFFICIALS REVISED

Billions of stolen people's money start not in Congress nor in the Senate but in the barangay -- those who elect the corrupt officials who would later on steal through their Priority Development Assistance Funds or PDAF. The barangay voters are the ones who choose who should sit in Congress and the Senate. So if we should want to clean up our politics so that we would be electing honest officials, then we must start to look intently on how the barangay politics is manipulated and driven to come up with officials who would be future king and queen makers in Congress, the Senate and Malacanang.

 Having been in close contact with the elections in our barangay, I have reflected on many things which show that politics here is not really taken seriously by the people, not even by most of the voters. "Barangay lang yan," they say. But the barangay is the microcosm of the larger political situation in our country. It is the training ground for those who aspire to be in Malacanang -- who will need to be sensitive and nurturing of the needs and welfare of the people. Ergo, let us look at elections as the most significant time for us to choose leaders who will SPEND THE PEOPLE'S MONEY AND USE GOVERNMENT RESOURCES later on.

At the barangay level, elections are held to choose the barangay captain and the kagawad -- the latter being future heads of committees that will take care of peace and order, livelihood, culture, environment, health and sanitation, among others. If the barangay captain is running for a 2nd or third term, all the government resources are open for disposal and the staff under him/her would not want to disobey orders not to do so for fear of losing their jobs. Hence all challengers of the incumbents are working on an uneven playing field, because the Commission on Elections hardly has the time nor the resources to look at every violation being committed during elections in 42,027 barangays all over the country. Thus, preventing the use of government resources for personal interests of the incumbents is hardly tackled at all.

 What are the issues that need to be addressed by the COMELEC then?

1. Candidates who break election rules should be penalized heavily, not just reprimanded. They are actually guilty of distorting democratic processes and providing erroneous role models to the youth who would later on want to be get involved politically. Also their act/s violate everyone's right to free, orderly, honest, peaceful, and credible elections which is mentioned in our Constitution, Article IX-C. Acting contrary to this provision is a form of Constitutional sabotage.

 2. Election registrars who turn a blind eye to violations should be transferred to a lower position immediately to show that the COMELEC means business;

3. The COMELEC should provide an allotment of P100,000 per barangay for the duration of the campaign period to finance the allowances for those who will watch over the violations of rules and regulations regarding campaigning. Time and again, barangay elections appear like an entertainment program being promoted at every street with tarpaulins, posters tacked here and there. There seems to be no serious effort nor attention to stop these violations when the proper thing to do is just place them at the designated poster area.

 4. The allotment should also be used to reward citizens who report such violators/violations in order to encourage them to be vigilant. Later on, we could expect them to do these things voluntarily without reward, and the candidates to be more wary about committing violations.

5. The total allotment is only P4,202,700,000, an amount that is minuscule if we could insure electing honest officials who will perform without pocketing a single centavo and thus save the coffers for meaningful programs and projects.

 6. The COMELEC should not allow candidates who have no platform to run. How could any candidate run without knowing what he or she will do later on once elected? The people should be allowed to choose intelligently from candidates who would explain and tell them that their involvement in the barangay would benefit them. If the candidate has no program of action, then the people will not be able to pin him or her down on anything because they had merely voted them into office without requirements. So then, that would be the start of corruption. Why, even the deaf and blind candidates would be able to tell through sign language (deaf) or voice (blind) what they could do for the people.

7. The COMELEC must provide security to all candidates. There are many hecklers in the barangay especially those who are linked to the present administration. The candidates should be protected and respected at all stages of their campaigning as all citizens should be. Being candidate should be a respectable state.

8. There should be a limit to the number of political paraphernalia -- posters and tarpaulins. To insure that all candidates adhere to the limitations, the COMELEC should choose three printers who would report honestly on how many they had produced. Then the watchers should count how many of these were put up in the barangay and if the number conforms to that ordered by COMELEC. Should there be violations, then these should be reported and candidates' paraphernalia shall be removed at their expense and penalties against such actions provided as well.

SOCIETAL CHANGES especially those that will strengthen our democratic processes, thus insuring that everyone has equal opportunities to serve in the government will take time but now is the best time in preparation for 2016. The presidential elections then should be a model for all election periods that will forever be remembered. While well-meaning people are still in COMELEC we must insure that they perform their role well and that they bring about changes that should redound to a creating a vigilant citizenry that will elect honest and not-PDAF thinking officials.