Moving communities and pursuing revolution
NO, this is not about #RevGov but yes, we need to pursue revolution in our communities—to arrest decay and the disregard of rights and sensibilities of communities. A public safety campaign should be launched nationwide so that each Filipino, each neighborhood in every community is able to protect and manage their locality. Neighborhood Watch is a community undertaking that can instill discipline and order. If only the barangay (village) works 24/7. In its failure, communities can decide to band together and to instill order. Imagine having Neighborhood Watch in every barangay in the country. We would have order and discipline and public safety in the community. And has to be a working partnership for public safety that refers to the welfare and protection of the general public.
Simple things, which compound public safety, are basic and yet we wonder why some are nonchalantly going about their daily lives, oblivious of decay. Take note of the garbage litter and kids playing and just throwing things anywhere. Parents just watch their kids acting like a group of anarchists, truly the beginning of a life of brigandage. The kids of informal settlers join in and as early as six in the morning, you already have shouting, which continues until the wee hours. You wonder what kind of parents do these kids have and what kind of future would they have.
Just watch the “gamu-gamo” (moth) kids inhaling solvent and doing their gig while playing hide and seek with vehicles on EDSA corner Ortigas. Last Thursday, a half-naked boy, with glassy eyes and gleaming face, confronted vehicles like he was Thor. Where is the barangay? Why can’t the MMDA or the PNP remove
there total abandonment? When we stop caring, we destroy community.
Then you have a neighbor who does not care for the rights of others and decide to park his long nonfunctioning vehicles on the road,
the other side of the road and their cages the sidewalk, and park his motorbikes in other sidewalks. When confronted he goes, “Ditoakosa daanko;meronka,duon,” (I will be here on my street; you have yours, there) as if he pays taxes and owns the road. When you request gently to remove the non-working vehicle parked recklessly for years, he goes, “Dikamarunongmagmaneho,e” (You don’t know how to drive, eh.) What do you do with a neighbor like that?
Then you have another that operates a sari-sari store without any business permit. The husband conducts repairs of vehicles without a permit and uses the street as his repair area. On your weekend rest, you wake up to blaring horns or noisy sound systems because he is a so-called audio specialist. Another stocks LPG in his residence, selling them from his house; again, no business permit. The once middle-class neighborhood with residents staying there for the past 50 years suffer because of these reckless neighbors, and yet the barangay remains unmindful. That’s Barangay St. Peter and in Quezon City. You’d think
has been eight years already when the neighborhood made a petition to the barangay.
So, when people talk about #RevGov, let’s not do the country first. Let’s prove that the concept works in the very area that matters, the barangay. We cannot be talking federalism if the barangay still thinks in terms of the center and by default, reasons that it does not have money and no capabilities, and it cannot do what is expected of it because the buck has always been passed to the mayor.
#RevGov should be done by every neighborhood, every community. Then we will feel what #RevGov is, and that it is possible for people to take back their communities and have order and discipline. People will realize that if they are safe, they will follow. If their rights are respected, they will work for a better community. If barangays lead and act, things will be different and national leaders will not be bothered
- legal terminals, illegal appropriation of sidewalks and streets, and people and animals urinating publicly, defecating on front yards that are not cleaned, trimmed and maintained. If barangays work and move, if they are seen more about than tied to their desks, if the kagawad (village councilors) are given areas and they work with the communities, then things will be much better and the burden of governance is not placed on the shoulders of the President only.
Those who keep saying we can’t do anything are wrong. We, the People, can do much, much more if we decide to get our act together and take our communities back. It used to be that the barangay was led by respected members of the community—without salaries or extensive areas, yet they were doing well. The word barangay originated from balangay, a kind of boat used by a group of Austronesian (Southeast Asia, Oceania and East Africa) people when they migrated to the Philippines. Barangays are political subdivisions of the state. Get these moving, we get federalism possible. Maintain the status quo, that’s safe zone central politics.
A wise revolutionary said: “If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience.” Let us start building our communities.