Ifugao lawmaker: Duterte can’t appoint b’gay execs

BAGUIO CITY – Ifugao lawmaker Teodoro Baguilat Jr. has vowed to block moves to pass a bill that would allow President Duterte to declare all elected barangay positions vacant and appoint officers-in-charge.

“What is the basis for saying that 40 percent of the officials are connected to drugs? It does not make sense. And even assuming that some are, can’t we trust the Filipino people to vote for those who they believe will be the right candidates for them? We are a free people and we must be free to elect our own leaders,” he said.

Baguilat challenged, “If this administration is so convinced that these barangay officials are into drugs, then file the appropriate cases. That is certainly more efficient than vetting over 200,000 people who will fill the barangay posts. Doing so will not address the problem, if there really is one as serious as the administration makes it out to be.”

The Ifugao lawmaker also said that if Duterte was so convinced of the prevalence of illegal drugs and the connection of these officials to the illicit trade, then it should not be a problem for his government, with all the resources at its disposal, to file the appropriate cases.

“Doing away with a vital political exercise would put the Duterte administration even closer to a dictatorship, considering that he already has some control over the two chambers of Congress,” Baguilat argued.

If the President pushes through with the plan to appoint barangay leaders instead of calling an election, he added, then it would make the officials beholden to Duterte – a condition that would be akin to a dictatorship by depriving the people of their fundamental right to choose their leaders and controlling the non-partisan and non-political barangay leadership.

Baguilat stressed that this scenario would “prevent the healthy check and balance essential to a democratic system that seeks to prevent abuse of power.”