EDITORIAL

Leave the SK alone  (The Freeman) November 02, 2010

If there is so much noise about the character and conduct of the Sangguniang Kabataan, it is only because there are so many hypocrites in our midst who pretend not to see that when the SK swung around years ago, there was never any pretention as to its direction.

There was no way the SK can be anything other than what they are supposedly being trained to become later -- as adult leaders of our country. That was the one and only purpose in creating the SK.

So if SK members behave like their models, they should be applauded instead of condemned. At least they succeeded in becoming what they were meant to be. Had they strayed away from their intended direction, then that should be the time to flog them.

In fairness to the SK, it is not the only one whose activities are patterned after adult models. Even in campus politics, where participants are as young as grade-schoolers, the signs of hewing to pre-set adult examples are already there and unmistakable.

This is not to say that people should be pleased with what they see in the SK, or that they believe in the reasons for its being. But why blame the SK when, shorn of all pretense and hypocrisy, it is only being truthful to what it was truly conceived to be.

If people do not like what they see in the SK, or do not see any reason for its continued existence, then they should work mightily to have it abolished. But while it exists, do not flog it for being true to itself.
For there can be no disliking the SK while at the same time tolerating the model after which it was designed to learn from and emulate. There is a method to the madness of politics and the SK is just part of that process.
So its either we put up or shut up. The SK cannot be so bad if the model is so good. Year in and year out we fill the air with the agonized screams of our bellyaching, and yet year in and year out we go through the same exercise with so much excitement you'd think a revolution was on.

Almost to a man, Filipinos love to condemn our brand of politics. And yet almost to a man Filipinos take to no other undertaking with so much passion as politics. So what is it really? Or are we just being hypocritical even with our own hypocrisies?

4,000 incumbents in Monday’s barangay polls face ouster

MANILA, Philippines—A cloud is hanging over the candidacy of over 4,000 barangay captains seeking reelection for the nth time as the country holds barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK, Youth Council) elections on Monday.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) Sunday announced that it would file disqualification cases against barangay candidates whose names were on the list of “multiple termers” the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) had provided the poll body.

The DILG inventory has identified 4,410 barangay captains nationwide who were found to be on their third or fourth terms but are still seeking reelection.

Under the law governing the synchronized barangay and SK elections, no elected village official can serve for more than three terms.

“Our election officers are now checking the records against the list of candidates in their respective jurisdictions,” Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said at Sunday’s press briefing in Intramuros, Manila.
“And if there are matches, the Comelec law department will right away file disqualification cases against those people,” Jimenez said.

Appropriate criminal charges—perjury and material misrepresentation—shall also be filed against these candidates, he said.

The list provided by the DILG has been distributed to all the election officers nationwide on Saturday for validation.

In a last-minute move, the Comelec Sunday night decided to postpone the elections in Barangays San Isidro and Salumague in Paniqui town in Tarlac province because floods spawned by Supertyphoon “Juan” have not subsided.

It said Election Chair Jose Melo approved the request of municipal officials to defer the elections in the two barangays because most of their residents were still in evacuation centers and the floodwaters would make it impossible for them to go to their polling stations.

The elections on Monday are expected to fill 672,400 elective posts in 42,025 barangays across the country.
Sixteen positions are to be filled in each barangay—eight in the barangay council (one barangay chair and seven council members) and eight in the SK council (one SK chair and seven SK council members.)
More than 50 million Filipinos (18 and above) are eligible to vote in the barangay elections and 2.46 million (15 to 17 years old) in the Sangguniang Kabataan balloting.

Barangays are authorized by law to disburse some P53 billion for local economic development projects and services under the 1991 Local Government Code. Their leaders act as judges in domestic disputes, supervise delivery of basic services and secure neighborhoods.
Unlike in last May’s automated national elections, voting and counting of ballots in Monday’s polls will be done manually.

On the eve of the elections, President Benigno Aquino III called on the people to vote as he assured them that Monday’s polls would be peaceful and orderly.

“This is an important chance for us to strengthen our barangay, the branch of government that first provides service to our people,” he said.

Mr. Aquino is expected to be in his home province of Tarlac on Monday where he will be casting his vote at Central Azucarera Elementary School, his deputy spokesperson Abigail Valte said in a radio interview.
Even if Monday is a national holiday, Mr. Aquino is expected to hold meetings with Cabinet members after he votes in Tarlac, according to Valte.

To effectively deal with “multiple termers,” the Comelec issued Resolution No. 9077, directing all barangay board of canvassers to put on hold any proclamation of winning candidates on the DILG list.

Multiple termers

The resolution also said that a hearing on disqualification cases against the “multiple termers” would be set immediately and be “summary in nature.”

“This means that there will be no more witnesses, no more testimonies,” Jimenez said. “There will only be submission of memoranda or position papers.”

The Comelec is expected to come out with a decision three days after the cases shall have been filed or “within the week,” he added.

To notify voters of “multiple termer” candidates in their respective barangays, an annotation will be provided on the list of candidates attached to either the ballot secrecy folders or tables where they will be filling out their ballots.

“The names of candidates found on the list will be annotated so voters will be aware that there is a cloud hanging over these candidates and if they happen to win, their proclamation will be suspended until such time that they are cleared,” Jimenez told reporters.

Voters should watch out for asterisks beside the names of candidates found to be “multiple termers” to ensure that their votes would not end up as stray votes, he advised.
Should these “multiple termer” candidates win in the elections, the Comelec will suspend the proclamation until they have completed the process of clearing their names.

Interim official

If the suspension of proclamation has not been lifted by Nov. 30, the Comelec will direct the DILG to appoint an ad interim official to take the place of the winning candidate, whose name has not yet been cleared, Jimenez said.
He said that as of 2 p.m. Sunday, the delivery of election paraphernalia to election sites was “close to 100 percent.”

“We are very optimistic that we will have regular elections in the whole country except for those areas affected by the recent typhoon,” he said.
The poll body, nevertheless, has prepared contingency measures should it decide to postpone the elections in some towns.

Voting hours

The measures include deferring the elections to Tuesday or extending election hours in some places. Polling precincts will accommodate voters from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday.

But the elections could be extended according to the number of hours of delay in problematic areas, said Jimenez.

Earlier Sunday, Comelec officials said only the towns of Divilacan, Palanan and Maconaco in Isabela province, which were hit hardest by the typhoon, would hold the elections at a later time.
The Comelec was still studying whether it also would postpone the elections in some towns in Tarlac, Abra, Mountain Province and Batanes.

“These are four other provinces where there are a lot of reports of impassable roads and unusable facilities as some are still being used as evacuation centers,” Jimenez said Sunday afternoon.

“We are monitoring the situation there on a 24-hour basis,” he said. With a report from Christine O. Avendaño.
By Jocelyn Uy
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:40:00 10/25/2010
Filed Under: Barangay Elections, Politics, Local authorities

6TH MARIKINA CITY COUNCIL

17th Regular Session of the 6th Marikina City Council

Barangay at SK Election... October 25, 2010

Oktobre 24, 2010, huling araw bago ang araw ng Halalan (October 25, 2010). Bagamat't ipinagbabawal na ang pangangampanya ang mga kandidato ay maraming pamamaraan na isinagawa maikutan lamang ang batas sa pangangapanya. Maraming ginawang gimik na hindi masasabing sila ang nangampanya, naglipana  ang mga taong  ang kanilang suot na damit ay ang mga T-Shirt na tinangap mula sa kanilang kandidato. Patuloy padin ang house to House na hindi lantaran. Sa gabi ng Oktobre 24 ng gabi, dito magaganap ang kanilang sinasabing BARILAN (ito ay pamimili o pagbabayad sa Leaders ng mga kalaban). Mapapansin mo sa inyong mga lansangan ang naglipanang mga naka-motor, sasakyan at mga naglalakad sa mga lansangan. Ang lahat ng ito ay mga Lider ng mga kandidato na binabantayan ang kani-kanilang botante para hindi na maagaw ng ibang kandidato. Iba-ibang pamamaraan para lamang maka-pwesto sa Pamahalaang Barangay.

 May nabanggit ba ang inyong mga kandidato, tungkol sa mga suliranin ng inyong mga Barangay. Ang isang sigurado maraming mga planong pangako ang mga kandidato, ang tanong magagawa kaya nila?

Barangay and SK Election 2010

Election na naman, maraming mukha ang mga nakadikit sa mga pader, poste, puno at iba-ibang gimik ang inyong makikita.

 MAY TAGA-SAYAW bigyan kasiyahan lamang at aliwin ang dumalo sa kanilang meeting

May nagtaas pa ng kamay... Si Sec. Ding Deles daw yan. Ang alam ko ang Barangay Election ay non-partisan

Ayon at may softdrinks pa, galing ng mga ideas, sana ganun din sa paggampan ng mga tungkulin sa mamamayan

Ayon at may kantahan pa! Ang awitin kaya ay kasing ganda ng Plataporma?   

 

Are some Oct 25 poll aspirants guilty of 'premature campaigning'?

http://www.gmanews.tv/video/67580/24oras-are-some-oct-25-poll-aspirants-guilty-of-premature-campaigning

6TH CITY COUNCIL MARIKINA

14th Regular Session of the 6th City Council of Marikina

FILIPINO IN HK FEARFUL

HONG KONG – JOY Fajardo likes to spend her Sundays meeting friends from her home town in Chater Garden, a famous gathering spot for the Philippine community at the heart of Hong Kong’s financial centre.

But this Sunday was an exception. The 30-year-old said she was warned to stay away from Chinese crowds for fear of retribution over the dramatic hostage crisis that left eight Hong Kong tourists dead in Manila on Monday. ‘We are very worried to be living in a Chinese community now,’ Ms Fajardo told AFP.

In a sign that feelings are running high, the message ‘Stop hiring Filipino domestic workers!!!’ has sprung up on Facebook sites set up by Hong Kong people to mourn the hostage victims.

The hostage drama has whipped up a frenzy of fear and rumours in the 200,000-strong Philippine community in Hong Kong, where most are employed as domestic helpers. A series of unconfirmed reports of Hong Kong employers trying to vent their anger by sacking or attacking their helpers has been widely circulating among Filipinos.

Ms Fajardo said text messages had been exchanged saying that more than 30 Filipina maids have been sacked following the tragedy, including one whose contract was terminated allegedly because her family name was the same as the gunman’s.

On Friday, Ms Fajardo said she received reports that three maids had been killed, with one of them having acid splashed over her face. ‘We don’t know if these cases are true. But we are very scared,’ she said.
Another Filipina worker, Julie, said her 60-year-old employer, for whom she has worked for 14 years, did not speak to her after the hostage crisis. ‘She watched news on TV about the hijacking. She did not talk to me and did not give me dinner on Wednesday,’ she said. ‘I was worried because she’s not happy and I didn’t understand what the Chinese news was about.’

Many also complained about being berated on public transport in the aftermath of the siege. — AFP

PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY

Participatory democracy is a process emphasizing the broad participation of constituents in the direction and operation of political systems. Etymological roots of democracy (Greek demos and kratos) imply that the people are in power and thus that all democracies are participatory. However, traditional representative democracy tends to limit citizen participation to voting, leaving actual governance to politicians.

Participatory democracy strives to create opportunities for all members of a political group to make meaningful contributions to decision-making, and seeks to broaden the range of people who have access to such opportunities. Because so much information must be gathered for the overall decision-making process to succeed, technology may provide important forces leading to the type of empowerment needed for participatory models, especially those technological tools that enable community narratives and correspond to the accretion of knowledge. Effectively increasing the scale of participation, and translating small but effective participation groups into small world networks, are areas currently being studied.

Some scholars argue for refocusing the term on community-based activity within the domain of civil society, based on the belief that a strong non-governmental public sphere is a precondition for the emergence of a strong liberal democracy. These scholars tend to stress the value of separation between the realm of civil society and the formal political realm.

Marikina gov’t to distribute flood maps

MARIKINA CITY — Marikina City will soon distribute a flood map among city residents which will indicate all posts at the highest flood level of 22 meters, higher grounds as relocation areas for the city vehicles and heavy equipment, and evacuation sites for residents in low-lying areas.

Marikina City Mayor Del de Guzman said the map will be a key tool in educating and informing residents on two important things: areas most prone to flooding and areas where it is safe for evacuation.
“This is a strategic step to manage our city in terms of flood preparation,” the mayor said.
Aside from the flood map, Vice Mayor Fabian Cadiz also ordered city administrator Vic Sabiniano to coordinate with the Department of Science and Technology and the Department of Public Works and Highways.

“We want to set up an upgraded flood warning system along the Marikina River in collaboration with the DOST; and we also want to appeal to the DPWH for the immediate repair of damaged floodgates located in Rosario, Pasig City,” he said.

The move is part of the city’s Disaster Risk-Reduction and Management Council, as chaired by Mayor de Guzman, and also the creation of barangay disaster councils in readiness for any massive flooding re-occurrence.

The city government has allocated PhP70 million as the calamity fund for the project.
It will come from the city’s annual budget of P1.4 billion, where 70 percent will be utilized for preparedness programs and actual relief while 30 percent for rehabilitation and reconstruction.

Members of the council, headed by Mayor De Guzman as Chairman, include among others representatives from the Bureau of Fire Protection, the Philippine National Police, the Chinese Volunteer Fire Brigade, the Rotary Club of Marikina, the Philippine National Red Cross, the Marikina Valley Contractors Association, the Tzu Chi Foundation, the Fil-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and the Marikina Valley Medical Society.