The appreciation of democracy

(Continued from Dec. 1, 2018 issue)

AS IT IS SUPPOSED to be, sovereignty is not supposed to be a static concept, because it is supposed to be expressed in the sovereign will of the people to make democracy work, both from the side of the government that is supposed to enforce the laws, and from the side of the people who are supposed to obey the laws.

The worst situation that could possibly happen in a democracy however is when the government would fail to enforce the laws, while at the same time the people would also fail to obey the laws. We see that happening in our streets, because that is probably the cause of the slow movement of traffic, if not the paralysis of it.

As provided for in the Local Government Code (LGC), the Barangay Councils are supposed to convene the Barangay General Assembly (BGA) at least twice a year, without any limits as to how many more times it could be convened within the year.

That is what the law says, but what is actually happening now is very far from what the law says. What is actually happening now is that very few Barangay officials are convening their BGAs, an act of omission or negligence that could actually drag them into an Ombudsman case. In a manner of speaking, a BGA is just like a Stockholder’s Meeting in a corporation, wherein all stockholders could vote.

As provided for in the LGC, each and every registered voter in a barangay has the right to vote in a BGA, in much the same way that every registered stockholder could vote in a Stockholder’s Meeting. Not only that, the BGA has the power to overrule or repeal any and all measures or resolutions passed by the Barangay Council, in much the same way that the Stockholder’s Meetings could overrule or repeal any and all measures or resolutions passed by the Board of Directors of a corporation.

Well, there is really no “chicken and the egg” situation here, because the registered voters in a barangay could actually demand that the Barangay Chairman should convene the BGA, whether he or she likes it or not.

What is simply needed here is for these registered voters to gather the courage to assert their political will by invoking their vested rights, while at the same time suggesting strongly that the Barangay Chairman is already under threat of being bombarded with Ombudsman cases.

Just to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, we could perhaps say that the registered voters in a barangay are not filing cases against their barangay officials out of tolerance. Hopefully, it is not because of ignorance of what their vested rights are.

The fact is, many barangay officials are getting away with not obeying the LGC, either because the registered voters do not know what to do, or they simply do not care to do anything. There may be a cure for ignorance, because an educational campaign could probably take care of that, but there is apparently no cure for apathy. It is apathy that weakens democracy, in much the same way that passivity weakens Christianity./PN