Politics and calamities
Here we go again. Duljo-Fatima barangay officials are complaining of politicking by Cebu City Hall in the distribution of meal packs for the survivors of the recent fire that hit the village. Instead of relying on the duly elected barangay officials, City Hall is channeling the assistance to the unelected barangay mayor’s office (BMO).
The setup, with BMO people competing with elected officials in the delivery of services to the village constituency, has long bedeviled barangay governance. It was conceived by Mayor Tomas Osmeña to weaken the influence of barangay officials identified with the political opposition on their constituents. The BMO is composed of people identified with the administration Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BOPK).
Because nobody has acted on the obvious usurpation by City Hall of the authority legally given to the elected barangay officials, the setup has continued to weaken governance in the grassroots. In the Duljo-Fatima case, the Department of Social Welfare Services is coordinating with the BMO in the distribution of meal assistance instead of with the incumbent barangay officials.
The logic there is the same as the one that guided the BOPK in turning the recent gathering of drivers of motorcycles-for-hire into a political activity. The May 2019 elections are near and the BOPK is portraying itself as the sole source of benevolence in City Hall. The hope is that those given help would vote for the BOPK slate led by reelectionist Osmeña in the elections.
What is glossed over is the admonition not to use calamities for politicking because it is akin to toying with the lives of the victims. But there is apparently this thinking among BOPK ranks that they would never be punished for what they are doing. They persist on this because they think they could get away with it.
The BMO is the ugliest creation of the Osmeña administration. And the only way that it can be dismantled is to also dismantle the rule of the politicians that created it. And people in the barangays are given the chance to restore sanity in barangay governance when they vote in the May 2019 elections.