Honest, orderly and peaceful elections were the mantra advocated by the election commission. Of the elements mentioned, the easy indicators were the order and peaceful conduct of the elections. Those were the observable aspects that even the ordinary citizen can measure by mere observation. Indeed, the barangay as the basic unit of local governance is composed of people who are mostly relatives buy blood or inter-marriages except in communities that resulted out of the relocation of supertyphoon yolanda survivors where constituents come from various places. The peace and order were maintained as violence was prevented by the family ties.

But the aspect of the elections being honest is tough to measure as almost every citizen were taking part in the rampant machinations, chiefly the buying and selling of votes. Party-lines prevailed notwithstanding the principle that the barangay elections was supposed to be non-partisan. The crisscrossing of money were very much obvious as vote-buyers acting as leaders were bold enough to showoff their operations as voters were waiting in ambush to take the money from all sources. Candidates had openly declared their readiness to shell out huge cash as the amount could be recovered from the honorarium they expect to get.

The amount would even be bigger if the candidate, especially for the local chief executive, who expects to a bigger return of investments from the programs and projects to be implemented. The willingness to spend more was considered a calculated risk where the odds are deemed skewed towards winning the elections. In most instances, the candidate has the gall to spend more considering that politicians from the provincial, city, municipality and even congressional and party-list were downloading financial support to ensure that their bets are elected.

The support from such politicians turned the barangay elections into a proxy war as they aim to take control of the barangay leaders in anticipation of the next midterm elections. Gaining the upper hand in the number of barangay leaders is an advantage in their favor. This resulted in the barangay candidates willingness to engage in an unlimited bidding just to get the support of the voters. The clever voters would take the rare opportunity to get money from all candidates and obtain more as the ante keeps increasing towards the later part of the voting time.

The youth were not spared from such corrupt practices as vote buying were also rampant, following the dictates of the group that took them as candidates. In some instances, the youth were included in campaign meetings of the candidates for barangay positions. The aim is to use the youth leader, chiefly the chairman, who is entitled a seat as ex-oficio member of the barangay council. The youth chairman would be a factotum of the barangay chairman, who would need the support in every voting during council sessions.

With the new set of barangay and youth politicians masquerading as leaders in the communities, people could only keep their fingers crossed that there is hope for the community and the people. The truth remains that the votes were bought at so high a price that would be recovered in just twenty-four months. People have no reason to complain as they had been paid and their politicians are up to recover the expenses and gather more funds for the next elections. Wonder no more if we still have . . . hope?
comments to alellema@yahoo.com

WE are reminded of this duty to pursue the ideal of unity of life in that gospel episode where Christ told the crowds and his disciples that while the leading Jews had taken their seat on the chair of Moses, they should do and observe what these leading Jews would tell them, but not to follow their example. (cfr. Mt 23,1-12) The reason? “For they preach but they do not practice.”

This, sadly, is a fact of life. We ourselves often can be accused of the same thing. We can be very good at preaching but poor in practice. We can be excellent in terms of theory and doctrine, but the aspect of morality is another story. Yes, it’s part of our human condition to fall into some forms of inconsistency and hypocrisy in our whole life!

But we should not be overly worried about this phenomenon. It’s not the end of the world. We can always do something about it. And in a sense, our whole life is precisely a matter of how we can achieve consistency and unity among the different aspects and dimensions of our life—the spiritual and material, the temporal and eternal, the theoretical and practical, the personal and social, etc.

What God expects from us is that we struggle against this lifelong predicament of ours. As long as there is some struggle, God would already be happy with us. We are not expected to perfect everything, because it will only be God who will do that for us, but also, with us.
In that gospel cited above, we are given an idea of how we can pursue this ideal of unity of life. And that is to be humble. It’s this virtue that would open us to the grace of God that in the end is the only way we can achieve this unity of life. Let’s forget and dismiss the idea that we can achieve this unity of life by our own efforts and powers alone.

This crucial virtue of humility can be developed in two ways: when we humble our own selves and when we are humbled by others or by some unavoidable circumstances. In that gospel cited above, Christ told the people that they have to humble themselves in the sense that they should avoid places of honor and privilege when invited to banquets, for example.

We have to realize then that any privilege, honor or praise given to us is a call for us to be more generous in our self-giving to such an extent that we would not run away from making the supreme sacrifice of giving our life for God and the others, just like what Christ did.

Our attitude should be to sharpen even more our desire to serve and not to be served. Christ made it clear to the mother and the brother-apostles, James and John, when he said, “The Son of man has not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mt 20,28)

Reiterating the same idea, he told them, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. Not so is it among you. On the contrary, whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.”

No doubt, with humility we can make progress in our quest for unity of life!

In an unprecedented commitment to solidly support the country’s foo and energy security, tycoon Ramon Ang, President and CEO of the San Miguel Corporation (SMC), announced that the Corporation’s “sustainability goals include uplifting the lives of at least 15 million people by 2030, adapting a circular economy approach by 2040 and establishing a fully sustainable supply chain by 2040. And lastly, achieving net zero emission by 2050. All these businesses, are working to complete a comprehensive road map to allow us to reach this goal.”

Ang further mentioned that “this would help our country attain food and energy security and local industries and make opportunities available to many Filipinos by doing so.” This was supported by the SMC Finance Officer who was quoted saying that “the company (SMC) is optimistic about its growth this year now with the pandemic winding down, travel and mobility returning to normal and the general government showing improvement.”

The SMC honcho, closed his statement by saying “we are off to a solid start this 2023 with our first quarter consolidated revenues ,improving by nine percentage to P346.7 billion .” Finally, CEO Ang noted that inflation remains a challenge as it affects prices of raw materials.

MY COMMENT:

What the SMC has committed to play a bigger role alleviate the Philippines food and energy security problems, is worth emulating. Other corporations and/or business entities are urged to follow suit to hasten the economic recovery of the country.
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