Echoes From
BY JOHNNY DAYANG

Political maturity and barangay democracy

The just-concluded, October 25 Barangay and SK elections gave clear indications on the level of political maturity we Filipinos have on electoral reform.

Elections function as the chief reforming mechanism of a democratic society. Democratic peoples, through elections, are able to freely choose their leaders and as a consequence, define the course of action a community, a province, a region, or an entire nation may take towards development and progress.

Democracy does not believe in armed struggle or brute force as the way to change. Neither does it see the right to rule as the divine right of kings. Democracy puts value on freedom as a basic right and regards "reason" as a unique capability humans have, allowing them to decide the best possible option for any given situation, be it a task as routine as crossing the street, or as complex as choosing the next President of the Republic.

In the Philippines, the barangay is the basic social unit. The barangay is where we all have a chance to pick candidates we really know. There is a no need for spindoctors or media hype, because at that level, people know each other. As they say in the vernacular: "Walang maitatago, madaling mabuko."

So, just how difficult would it be to pick the best candidate for barangay captain, barangay kagawad, or SK chair? How impossible would it be to ensure that elections are clean, honest, and orderly at the barangay level?

Well, as we witnessed last October 25, the problems seem to lie with the Commission on Elections and the election indifference of about 40 percent of barangay voters in the country.

On election day, close to 40,000 of the six million registered voters in Metro Manila failed to participate in the elections because of double registration. About 2,463 out of some 42,025 barangays failed to hold elections because poll supplies didnt get to these areas on time. Indeed, Comelec has a lot of explaining to do.

The question is: who will make them accountable? Definitely not the 40 percent who did not bother to vote last October 25. We need to restudy our collective political maturity when almost half the voting population chooses to not participate in the most basic of electoral exercises.